I thanked her and hung up, but deep down, I felt pretty certain that she actually had helped me quite a bit. I just hadn’t figured out how quite yet.
Chapter 17
The next two days were a blur of sewing and contemplation. I had told Megan, Todd, and Jessie Pearl what Kristina Boyd had told me. “Then why would she have told us that he was cheating?” Jessie Pearl asked, voicing the same question I had.
The possible answers were that Kristina Boyd was a horrible investigator and Delta had figured that out, or that she was so angry she just couldn’t turn off her suspicions. I’d seen it happen. People had been known to convince themselves that lies were the truth, despite the evidence.
Now it was the day before the progressive dinner. Taking stock of what I’d created and what still needed to be done, I laid the completed aprons out on the sofa and loveseat next to a curled up Earl Grey, who was fast asleep. I still had Jessie Pearl’s apron to make, plus Cynthia’s. Of anyone wrapped up in the sordid mess of Delta’s death, her mother was the most distraught and needed peace. A tea towel apron made from one I’d found in the stack of runners she’d given me would be the perfect distraction. We were all still reeling from the murder, trying to figure out who else might have wanted Delta dead.
I’d already given Georgia Emmons her apron. Bennie’s was complete and had been delivered. I’d just finished Sherri Wynblad’s. It was the most traditional of the group. I didn’t know Sherri well, but she’d always struck me as a straight arrow. She loved her family, but she also didn’t put up with anything. She, Coco, and Delta were the same in that respect, they just manifested it differently. Sherri and Coco had restraint, honor, and a sense of boundaries that Delta hadn’t had, but they were cut from the same cloth. Direct and single-minded.
Coco had asked me to help figure out what had happened to Delta, and she wouldn’t rest until we had answers. She’d called every day since I’d seen her last to check my progress. I’d filled her in on the private investigator, the affair that wasn’t, and my uncertainty at where to go next in the investigation.
She jumped to a different conclusion than I had. “She sacked the PI because she’s wrong. Oh, he was having an affair. He had to have been.”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” I said. “What if it was Delta in the car with Anson? The investigator captured them together. That would explain why Delta stopped having Anson followed.”
“But what’s the bigger fish she had to fry?” Coco asked. I’d told her everything, even about the notes in the Lladrós and the one from Sherri that had been hidden in the teapot.
“Good question.”
“There wasn’t any love lost between Delta and Jeremy. Maybe she was after him. He thought she was having him followed. Was she?”
“The investigator wouldn’t give me anything on Jeremy.”
“But that means nothing!” Coco exclaimed so loudly, I had to yank the phone away from my ear. “She told you about confidentiality, right? So she couldn’t very well say anything specific about Jeremy. That would be defamation if it got back to him. I’m surprised she gave you as much as she did, frankly.”
I’d thought the same thing. “He’s ambitious. And if she was trying to thwart his run for mayor, that might have been enough for him.”
“So basically, we still don’t know,” she said. “You’re not giving up, are you?”
“The sheriff is investigating, Coco. They have better resources than I do—”
“What do they have so far?” I imagined her shaking her head in frustration on the other end of the line. “Don’t stop now, Harlow. We’ve got to get to the bottom of this.”
I didn’t know what more I could do, but Delta hadn’t deserved to die, so I promised I’d keep my ear to the ground.
Coco had agreed to pick up the aprons I’d made and deliver them to their owners, so I could finish Jessie Pearl’s. “It’s good of you to make one for Mother,” she said when I told her my plan.
“An apron isn’t going to make her forget anything, but taking Delta’s place at the dinner might help her get some peace.”
“Go on then,” Coco said. “I’ll be by in a while to collect the aprons.”
We’d hung up, and I went back to the workroom. I put Sherri’s apron aside and took another look at Randi’s. I had to admit that it was my favorite of the bunch. It was reminiscent of Donna Downey and her mixed-media art, the inspiring words strategically placed on the skirt panel completing the artsy look of the apron. Part of me desperately wanted to keep it for myself, but I’d made it for Randi. I’d create another in the same style for myself when I had a lull in business. Which at the rate Buttons & Bows was growing would be never. I already had Bliss’s version of the upcoming Fashion’s Night Out on my calendar, and that would take a good two months to orchestrate and sew for. My own apron would have to wait.
But all this was good. I could live without my own special apron, just as long as I could keep creating and doing what I loved.
I went back to the collection I’d finished. Figuring out what to make for Coco had been tough, but it had come to me after we’d paid a visit to Pastor Kyle. She was all about family. She was loyal and would always be there for Megan and Todd, would do whatever it took to make things right for Jessie Pearl, and she and Sherri would bend over backward for each other. I picked up her apron, knowing that her deepest wish was that Delta’s murderer would be brought to justice. So many people around me were suffering. I wanted to sew a design for each one of them, help them all, and ease their pain.
I would have to go about it one garment at a time.
For Coco’s apron, I’d ended up taking the overalls I’d bought at the tag sale, deconstructing them to create an apron using the bodice of the overalls and about twelve inches of the denim from the waist down. I’d cut the legs off the overalls, changing the neck strap to a teal patterned fabric I’d bought at the fabric store, no idea at the time what I’d do with it. Now it was obvious. Teal and denim went together like cornmeal and okra. I used the same teal cotton to create a contrasting waistband to thread through the already existing denim belt loops.
The final touch was the vintage doily I sewed to the large front pocket on the bodice, giving it a strong feminine touch. I added a little crocheted flower to the center. It was subtle, but the teal tied it all together.
I wanted to keep this one for myself, too, and I knew without a doubt that I had to make something similar for Nana to wear while she worked making her goat cheese.
At the rate I was going, if I managed to make versions of all the aprons I loved, I’d have myself an abundant collection before I was through.
I laid Coco’s next to the others on the couch and moved on to examine Megan’s. I loved it as much as Randi’s and Coco’s. This one was a homespun antique white cotton. It had a muslin-like finish, but was sturdier than the typical limp variety found at the chain fabric stores. It was similar in style to the cocktail apron I’d made for Bennie, but the fabric and extra gathering in the ruffles made this one more youthful and flirty than the vintage, yet colorful, version I’d done for the older woman.
If I closed my eyes, I could see Megan in her half apron, walking through a field of grass, her husband by her side, a basket full of wildflowers over one arm. The appliqué of a muted, handmade fabric flower on the left side just above the top ruffle added to the flirtatious look of the piece. I hoped Megan would love it, and just like with the other women, I believed it would help her greatest wish come true.
The aprons looked impressive lying there side by side. Each was unique and truly spoke about the person it belonged to. Suddenly the bottom hems fluttered as if a door had opened and a breeze had blown in. But it wasn’t a waft of fresh air blowing in from outside. It was Meemaw. The window behind me in the workroom suddenly opened. Loose fabric pieces lifted from the cutting table and fluttered around the room. “Meemaw!” I hurried to the workroom, catching the pattern pieces before reaching up to clo
se the window.
Through the window, I could see my grandmother’s goats milling around. Staying out of trouble for a change. But it wasn’t the goats that had caught my eye, it was the fence creating a barrier between Nana and Granddad’s place and mine. The dark wood panels were rustic and worn. I envisioned the aprons I’d made hanging from the top, a row of color and whimsy in the Texas yard.
Had Meemaw known what I’d see and think when I looked out the window? She was a spitfire of a ghost, and intuitive to boot. I scooped up the aprons, wishing I had the full apron I’d done for Georgia. But I didn’t, and I couldn’t cry over spilled milk. I took my camera and headed out the back door to arrange my creations and snap some pictures for my developing Web site and lookbook. Granted, aprons weren’t something a fashion designer would normally put in her design collection, but I was no ordinary fashion designer, and this was not New York.
It took about fifteen minutes and some rearranging before I had the aprons in the order I wanted, with the colors complementing one another and the balance between half and full designs working together as a whole collection. The waist ties hung down on either side of each apron, moving gently with the breeze.
It took another few minutes to adjust the settings on my camera to work with the fading light outside, and then, with my eye at the viewfinder, I framed the picture and shot. It took ten tries before the breeze, the light, and Thelma Louise, the granddam of Nana’s goat herd, who’d decided to poke her head through a gap in the fence, cooperated. I ended up with the perfect picture of the aprons hanging from the fence, and in fact, the one with Thelma Louise was my favorite. She was a rascal of a goat, but she had personality and spunk, and I had to admit that I liked her.
“Harlow!”
The Dutch door from my kitchen banged closed as I turned to see Coco waving at me from my back porch. She held on to the railing as she came down the stairs and walked across the yard. “I saw you from the window,” she said, as she got closer. “Look at those! They’re beautiful.” Her eye caught the camera I held, and she smiled. “Are our aprons going to go on your Web site? Will they be up on that corkboard you have in the shop?”
The bulletin board hung on the eastern wall in Buttons & Bows, behind the rack of ready-to-wear clothing. It held my latest designs, sketches, printed pages from my lookbook, and swatches of fabrics. It was my design board and was something I continually updated. “It just might,” I said.
But she’d already zeroed in on one apron and headed straight toward it. “This is it, isn’t it? I hope this one is for me!” She fingered the ruffle on the bottom of the denim and teal creation.
I smiled jubilantly, nodding. “How’d you know?”
She looked down the fence line, her brow furrowing as she considered the question. “I’m not rightly sure,” she said finally. “I just knew. The others are lovely, but this one . . . this one speaks to me. Does that even make a lick of sense?”
“It does,” I said. “It spoke to me before I made it, and I knew, one hundred percent knew, that it was right for you.”
“You’ve got a God-given talent, Harlow, you know that? I’m sure I’m not the only person to ask you this, but why in heaven’s name did you come back to Bliss? Surely you could have made it in Manhattan. Seems to me you have a unique style. ’Course, what do I know?”
“The New York City fashion world isn’t for the faint-hearted,” I said, nodding. “But no, that’s not really it. I missed Mama and Nana and Meemaw when I was away. It was good for a while, but I kept feeling like I’d made the wrong choice. I was meant to be here.” I shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s hard to explain. All I know is that when I came back, I just couldn’t leave again. Meemaw was right to bring me back home.”
“I think I understand,” she said. “Bliss is a special place. I was born and raised here. And I’m not leavin’ Bliss till I’m horizontal.” She gave a bitter laugh. “Guess me and Delta have that in common.”
“I’m starting to feel the same way,” I said. There was something about Bliss that drew you in and didn’t want to let you go. It wasn’t the frenzied energy of a big city, but a cocoon of comforting warmth. It was a place to settle down in, a place to raise kids, and a place to call home.
“Very clever of you to have found those notes,” she said as she helped me gather the aprons. She gave a nostalgic laugh. “I didn’t realize Delta and Sherri still wrote them.” She shook her head, the soft light of the fading sun heightening her melancholy expression. I could almost see her mind going back in time as she imagined herself as a girl, writing notes and playing games with her sisters.
I’d called Sherri three times, wanting to find out more about whatever she’d been talking about in the message she’d left in the teapot, but so far, she hadn’t called me back. I’d follow up on it later, but for now, I went back to the aprons.
“All I have left before the progressive dinner is finishing Cynthia’s apron and making your mother’s,” I told her. “Then I’ll be done.”
“They’re incredible,” Coco said, but by this point, I could see she was done thinking about aprons and was back to pondering Delta’s murder. “I’ve been wondering about something,” she began.
“Wondering what?”
“I heard about the private investigator’s report. Do you know Sherri and I hadn’t seen that? Mother filled us in on every last detail. Because the sheriff has it now, of course,” she added.
“I’m sure he’ll return it as soon as he can.”
She waved that idea away. “I don’t need it. Mother told me about the picture of the car and that you thought there was a woman wearing a red hat.”
“But if the investigator said Anson wasn’t having an affair, then it doesn’t matter anyway.”
“Maybe not, but it still needs explaining.”
She had a point. “What if that was Delta in the car with him? What if they were trying to rediscover their love?” Stranger things had happened. Why not Anson and Delta falling for each other again? That could explain why she suddenly knew there was no affair, and why she dropped the investigation. She was the person Anson was seeing, and it had been captured in one of the photographs.
But that didn’t explain Delta’s comments in the kitchen about not being able to trust her husband, and about having a bigger fish to fry.
Coco threw up her hands. “It’s possible. I’ve always liked Anson, and let me tell you, I have a no-good ex-husband. It was a low time in my life, to be sure, but would I trade it? Heavens, no. If I did, I wouldn’t have my children, and I wouldn’t be as strong as I am. Because I am strong. I had to survive—for my kids, even when I just wanted to give up. It was three of them against one of me, and let me tell you, there were plenty of times I wanted to raise a white flag and just say, I quit. You win.
“But of course I didn’t do that. I couldn’t do that because I was all they had, and they were all I had. They are the best things that ever happened to me, and I wouldn’t change all the horrible times for anything if it meant I’d have to give them up. Now I have the best husband in the world, I have them, and let me tell you, I know Delta would be saying the very same thing about Anson and her and Megan. She would have done it all again if it meant she’d have her daughter. So they may have had problems. What marriage doesn’t? But I can’t see her giving up on it.”
Coco’s story brought my own father to mind. Mama had been crushed after my daddy, Tristan Walker, left her. He found out about our magical charms and had turned tail and run, never looking back. But Mama couldn’t give in to her sorrow. She couldn’t lie down and give up. She had Red and me to worry about. And as hard as those days had been on her, I knew she wouldn’t change it for the world. She’d raised us well, and now she had Hoss. Things were as they were meant to be.
“Have you talked to Anson?” I asked.
“Not since the memorial, and not much during it, in fact. He’s a man of few words, anyway. Now, with his grief, he’s mostly silent.”
A car drove by outside. I glanced through the front window in time to see a Jeep Wrangler roll past, stopping in front of Jessie Pearl’s house. “Speak of the devil,” I said, cracking the front door open wide enough to take a closer look. “I’m going to go talk to him,” I said, suddenly making up my mind. I knew Hoss and Gavin had to have already spoken to him, but maybe I could get something from him.
“I’ll stay here,” Coco said. She sat down on the loveseat, one elbow resting on the armrest, and planted her feet on the ground.
“Are you sure?” I asked, but I was glad. Coco was a presence to be reckoned with, and at the moment, I thought I’d do better talking to Anson Mobley on my own.
She waved me on. “One hundred percent.”
I looked around, quickly coming up with an excuse to go next door. The mail was stacked in the center of the dining room table. Under the bills were three or four catalogs. One, I knew, was home and garden décor. I snatched the catalog, thumbing through it. In a series of pictures at the end of the publication, a yard done up with twinkle lights and lanterns was showcased. It was an awful lot like what Todd had described for the dinner party. This would do as a pretense for stopping by.
“I’ll be back,” I said to Coco as I hurried out the front door, down the porch steps, and out to the sidewalk. I was just in time. Anson Mobley came out the front door, a suitcase in one hand, a duffle bag in the other, and a deep frown on his face.
I slowed my pace, stalling until he got to the curb, and then as he approached his Jeep, I sped up and plowed right into him. “Oh!”
“Watch it!” he barked, but he dropped his bags and grabbed my shoulders, keeping me upright.
“I’m s-so sorry,” I said. “I was just stopping by to show this catalog to Todd and I didn’t see you there. Mr. Mobley, right? I’m Harlow Cassidy.” I pointed to my house. “I live next door.”
His scowl faded, but he remained silent.
“Todd’s been working in the yard, getting it ready for the progressive dinner tomorrow night, and I thought he might like to see this,” I continued, holding up the catalog. “There are some good ideas in here.”
A Seamless Murder Page 16
