A Fitting End: A Magical Dressmaking Mystery (29 page)

Maybe because the father of Sandra’s child was dead and it had brought up old baggage between them? Did Steven Allen know who Libby’s father actually was? My heartbeat fluttered. What if he’d figured it out and had killed Macon in a fit of jealousy?

As far as murder scenarios went, I liked that one better than Sandra as the killer.

“Harlow?”

I snapped my attention back to Josie. “Sorry—what?”

She straightened as she put the last label on the Margaret dresses hanging from the third garment rack. “Mrs. James called a little while ago. She said she loves the dress, and thank you.”

“Good!” I couldn’t wait to see her in it, but more than that, I couldn’t wait to see if my charm worked and things were improving for her. As I closed Trudy’s notebook, I took a closer look at Josie. Her green eyes glowed. So did her skin, for that matter. She looked radiant. It was the only word I could use to describe her. I had a sudden image of her in a rayon and spandex maxi dress, the fabric stretched across the belly. I pressed my hand to my chest. “Oh my stars.”

She stopped, the hanger gripped in both hands, turning to look at me. “What? What’s wrong? Tell me!”

I gulped, swallowing the giggle that bubbled up my throat. “You know that fashion show at Christmas?”

She nodded. “Yeah.”

“Sugar,” I said, my Southern accent growing stronger, “you’re gonna be sportin’ somethin’ from the maternity line.”

She froze. “Wh-what?”

I’d expected her to jump up and down, throw out her arms and give me a hug, and ask me how I knew, to which I’d respond, “You’re glowing!” Instead, her smile inverted, frown lines formed between her eyebrows, and her shoulders slumped. “I can’t be. Not yet.”

“Josie?” I took the last gown from her arms.

Her eyes were glazed with tears, but she waved me away, saying, “That was silly. I’m f-fine. It’s just…”

I hung the dress up, careful to create space between it and the other garments. Crushed crinoline and petticoats would never do. “It’s just what?”

“Nate’s family… They’re all… all…”

She didn’t need to say another word. A lot of the Kincaid’s dirty laundry was still flying through Bliss, months after Josie’s bridesmaid was murdered. She was doing her best to rise above the muck and the gossip, but being part of a fallen family was no easy feat. “You and Nate are great together. You’ll be fantastic parents!”

She was a few inches shorter than me, so she tilted her gaze upward. “We were going to wait awhile. You know, until the dust settled.” Her face clouded, her eyebrows pulling together. She looked down at her flat belly. She definitely didn’t have a baby bump. Yet. “Wait a second. How do you know I’m pregnant?”

I shrugged. Nonchalant was the way to go. “Just a hunch.” But I’d never been more sure of anything in my life.

*   *   *

I’d thought the country club had been chaos earlier, but this… this was utter mayhem. Ushering a gaggle of teenage girls dressed in Victorian gowns to their places on the stage was harder than herding cattle. They clucked, milled around, moved from their spots, and tugged at the heavy sleeves or fanned out the petticoats and crinoline beneath their weighty skirts.

The curtain was drawn, blocking us all from the audience filing into the banquet room. Will Flores was out there, ready to watch his daughter become part of something he’d never imagined she would.

With Trudy’s book in hand, Josie and I had managed to get all eighteen of the Margarets into the right dresses. Now, Mama, Nana, and I, needles and threads in hand, busily inspected each and every one of them, turning the girls this way, then that way, checking for torn hems, gaping seams, or anything else amiss.

Finally, the chaos settled and like the calm before the storm, the Margarets and beaus grew quiet and fell into their places. Duane, dressed in his 1800s replica suit, stood back and practiced an imaginary golf swing as I knelt in front of Libby, slip-stitching the flapping hem of her dress. I watched her parents from the corner of my eye. If they’d been out of sorts earlier, they seemed over it now. They were already in their outfits, Sandra decked out in a silk burgundy gown, an off-white starched bonnet on the back half of her head, the three-inch ties done up under her chin. Steven looked smart in a tightly tailored coat and trousers, a wide cravat tied in a small, centered bow. His low-cut vest showed off the fine white shirt.

They were playing the central roles of Margaret and
Sam Houston in the pageant. They took their places, one just out of sight at stage right, the other at stage left. “How much time do we have?” I called out.

Mama’s voice rose above the din. “Five minutes. Just about done, right here,” she said, sending another Margaret to her place on the stage. I tied off the thread just as Libby waved to someone across the stage. I turned and relief flowed through me. Mrs. James waltzed in, the color returned to her cheeks, the confidence back in her stride, and looking radiant in the sky blue dress I’d made special for her. She waved to Libby and made a beeline for us.

“Darlin’,” she said, bending to give her granddaughter a peck on the cheek, “you look divine.”

Libby’s cheeks stained pink, her smile stretching from ear to ear, her dimple carved in her left cheek. “You do, too, Grandma.” After a quick hug, I sent Libby to her place on the stage. The beaus were in a huddle waiting for their entrance. Libby stood right next to Gracie. Mrs. Zinnia James was a tricky old bird to make sure that the two girls who’d hit it off in my shop became better friends. I liked her even more.

Someone yelled from across the stage. “Two minutes!”

“Libby and Gracie are lovely, aren’t they?”

“Like two peas in a pod,” she said, and I snapped my gaze to her again.

Zinnia James looked at me, nodding thoughtfully. “Yes, they are. I know the truth,” she added softly, taking my hand. “Your grandmother, bless her heart, entrusted me with your family’s secret all those years ago. I’ve seen it in Libby recently. She has an uncanny ability to create the most decadent concoctions in the kitchen.
Once I realized it went beyond what anyone could say was normal, I knew. She puts things together, uses herbs and flowers and,
voila
! Suddenly, there’s the most delightful creation and you feel absolutely breathless.”

“It’s true,” a voice said from behind me. “We spent that whole night at Miss June’s talkin’ about it and figurin’ out how to tell Libby… and Gracie.”

I whirled around to face my grandmother. “I—I thought… I thought you two didn’t like each other?”

“Water under the bridge, Harlow. You made me see that not so long ago.” Mrs. James slipped her arm through Nana’s. “Isn’t that right, Coleta?”

“One minute!”

The girls were all in their places. Josie and Mama slipped out front to watch, but Nana, Mrs. James, and I sidestepped to stage right, where Sandra James Allen stood dressed up like Margaret Moffette Lea.

“That’s right.”

“Sandra has the charm, too,” Mrs. James whispered, winking at her daughter. “She and Steven have done everything in their power to keep it quiet, protect Libby, especially when it came to Libby’s biological father. God knows how he might have used that information. It was bad enough he figured out we’re connected to an outlaw and his lover.”

I stared, practically speechless. “You have it, too?” I managed to say.

Sandra nodded solemnly. “Libby and I are the same. When we cook, it’s like our energy flows into the food and is absorbed by whoever eats it.”

I gaped at her, trying to make sense of everything I was hearing. They all
knew
about the Cassidy charms.

“Time,” someone called, and, slowly, the curtain began
to rise. As the strains of a piano sonata by Robert Schumann filled the air, the girls, in perfect unison, curtsied, and began their dance, moving through the choreographed steps they’d been practicing for months. Only Gracie, who’d had very little time to rehearse, stumbled. She kept her eye on Libby to get the steps right, biting her lower lip and shooting a quick glance in my direction.

Sandra’s voice ripped my attention away from Gracie and back to the murder of Macon Vance. “We didn’t kill him,” Sandra whispered. “That’s what you’re thinking. I can see it on your face.”

“You’re sure about your husband?” I snuck a glance at him. He circled his chin, looking strangled by the cravat around his neck.

“I’m sure.”

I debated going for the whole enchilada, finally taking a deep breath and plunging ahead. “What about Anna Hughes?”

Nana and Mrs. James whispered together like the old friends they apparently were again. I caught their occasional glance at Sandra and me before they focused again on the dancing Margarets.

“What about her?” Sandra watched her husband and her daughter, only half focused on our conversation. She took a step toward center stage at exactly the moment he did.

I wanted to be delicate, but I was running out of time. “Was she jealous? Could she have…” I snuck a look at Mrs. James, not wanting to just ask her outright if she’d been having an affair with Macon Vance.

Sandra moved back toward me, still in time with Steven and the music. “Macon was Libby’s father, but that
was it. Whatever we had was over before Libby was born,” she said as she bent at the waist in a flowing dance move. “Anna was having an affair with him. If she was jealous, it wasn’t of me.”

The music changed, and the dance shifted gears, each of the Margarets twirling, holding their dresses out as they spun. Sandra and Steven met in the center of the stage, taking hands, coming together, then separating.

The Allens waltzed toward the front of the stage. The bubble machine, now strapped to a platform above the stage and out of sight, whirred to life. And just like that, as the bubbles cascaded down, surrounding the debutantes in a magically iridescent moment, a memory sparked. Macon Vance, right here on this very stage, arguing with Mrs. James, asking her what happened to girls who didn’t have a pedigree, but had something different.

My breath hitched. Like a charm?

I racked my brain, trying to remember the rest of the conversation. It hit me the next second. He’d asked if the Margarets have to do tricks.

Macon Vance
had
known about the Cassidy charm.

That suspicion led me back to Mrs. James. My heart clenched in my chest as if a velvet bow had been tied around and around it, pulled tighter and tighter. “I know what you’re thinking, Ladybug, and it’s not true.” Nana whispered in my ear. “Zinnia didn’t kill that man.”

I gave my grandmother the silent stink eye. A few days ago she didn’t want to have a thing to do with Mrs. James; now she was defending her? I couldn’t make heads or tails of anything.

“Harlow?” Zinnia James’s strong Southern voice interrupted my thoughts.

“Yes, ma’am?” I tucked my hair behind my ears, turning to face her. When I did, I melted. She glowed in her softly ruffled dress, her eyes alight with love for Libby and Sandra. “You know, a week ago I never would have thought Coleta and I would ever mend our bridges, but look at us now. I couldn’t have wished for anything more than this moment, right here.” She leaned over and gave me a hug, and I knew that the dress had worked. I’d thought Mrs. James’s deepest desire would be to be clear of the murder investigation. It wasn’t. She wanted her friendship with my grandmother back.

I peaked out at the audience to gauge the reaction. Madelyn Brighton floated through the crowd, snapping pictures of the Margarets. All the tables were full. Ice clinked against the clear glasses, the waiters moved quietly as they set up the buffet table, and… My gaze hitched on one table. George Taylor sat with a woman I didn’t recognize. She was the lucky woman dating Bliss’s most eligible bachelor. Next to him was Will, then Karen and Ted Mitchell, Josie’s partners in her bead shop. Anna and Buckley Hughes rounded out the table.

I zeroed in on Anna, wondering if her version of the story was true, or if Sandra’s was. Either way, there was something about her that sent up a warning in my head.

The dance concluded, and Mrs. James straightened up, gave Nana’s hand a fortifying squeeze, and waited for her cue to go onstage to announce the Margarets and read the pedigrees. Before she passed the curtain, she stopped and turned. “Harlow, I almost forgot. When I went to pick up the dress at your shop, your computer was buzzing. Making a really strange noise, almost like something was inside the box.”

Meemaw. “Thanks,” I said. “I’ll get it fixed.”

“Yes, good.” The music faded and the girls dropped into a deep curtsey. Applause and a few “Yipees!” broke out from the audience. “I couldn’t help but notice,” Mrs. James continued, “that you’d Googled Anna Hughes.”

“Oh! Right.” Good grief, that seemed like eons ago. “I was trying to find out about her sister’s wedding.” Inside, my stomach roiled. It was as if Mrs. James had known I’d just been thinking about the doctor’s wife.

“It’s a doozy of a secret she’s been keeping from her
Amarillo days,” she said, one eye on the Margarets, her fingers lightly fluttering over her forehead, then along her upper lip. I’d never seen Mrs. James nervous. It made her even more endearing.

“O-ohhh.” I frowned. “Yes.” Affairs and daytime drinking were pretty good secrets.

“Your pipes started creaking, too.” She turned to look at me, one finger poised against her cheek. “That’s quite a rickety old house you have there,” she added, but she cocked her head at me, like she wanted confirmation that it was Loretta Mae, and not the pipes, making a ruckus in my house.

“That darn plumbing,” I said, giving an
aw, shucks
snap with my fingers. The beaus made their way onto the stage, spun the Margarets in a well-rehearsed twirl, then retreated back to the wings.

“Quite a scandal,” Mrs. James said. “Fern said Trudy’s recovering nicely. Guess we can tell her she was wrong. Lightning certainly can strike the same place twice.”

I stared at Mrs. James’s back. Scandal? Lightning? “I don’t—,” I started to say, but the music queued, the girls separated into two lines, and Mrs. James waved at me. She glided out to her spot, looking exactly like a former debutante should look, her silhouette lovely as she basked in the limelight. Being held in the town’s jailhouse hadn’t hurt her one lick.