“If she did, she never mentioned them to me. But I’m here in an official capacity, not to get some procedure done.”
She arched one of her eyebrows at me. “You’re here in the official capacity of a dressmaker?”
“Yup.” It was just too much of a coincidence that I’d found the old Margaret dresses right before the Margaret festival and I couldn’t get them off my mind. I filled Madelyn in on the gowns in the armoire, thinking that if I talked it out, I could stop thinking about them.
Madelyn listened attentively, and finally, I moved on to my idea about making the perfect outfit for Mrs. James. “The women here tonight might give me ideas about Mrs. James’s perfect garment.”
“High expectations from a cosmetics party,” she said in her very British way.
She looked out the window as I slowly drove down the street. Still nowhere to park. At this rate, we were going to end up clear down at the Johnson ranch, and considering I’d had a run-in with Clevis Johnson and his weather vane back in the day, I preferred not to go near his place. Not to mention we’d have to hoof it a good long way to the Hughes’s property.
“Not to be a party pooper,” she said after a spell, “but even if you figure out Mrs. James’s perfect garment, which believe me, I know you can do—I’ve not been the same since you made me over that first time and just look at me now.” She spread her arms as much as she could in the truck, showing off her stylish outfit: a pair of red, midcalf leggings and a flowing silk crepe de chine white-black-and-red-trimmed scarf blouse I’d made for her. “But even if you figure it out and make it—amidst the gowns you need to finish, may I remind you—how is it going to help her? Your magic is a blessing—”
I sucked in a sharp breath. Madelyn knew the Cassidy secret, but to hear her talk about it so openly made my heartbeat skitter. I’d been so used to keeping it under wraps. I hadn’t told Josie, Gracie, Will… no one but Madelyn.
“—but if she committed murder—”
“But that’s just it,” I said, cranking the steering wheel and flipping the truck around to make another pass in case someone had left the party and a spot along the shoulder had opened up. “She didn’t commit murder.”
“You don’t want her to have killed that poor man, love, but she may have.”
I refused to believe that. I’d already been shocked once by murder in my front yard. Mrs. James was almost like my benefactor. While my business grew, she was helping to keep me working with her custom garment needs. Of course I didn’t want to lose her business, but it was more than that. She was a tell-it-like-it-is kind of woman, just like the women in my family. I liked that about her. I liked her. And because of her past friendship with my grandmother, even if they were estranged now, I felt oddly connected to her. It was as if we shared a piece of history.
“Your lovely Mr. Flores is flagging you down, love.”
I looked to where Madelyn was pointing and sure enough, there was Will, at the end of his long driveway, wiping his hands clean on a blue rag, beckoning me over. “He’s not my Mr. Flores,” I said. For goodness sakes, I just wanted to sew and keep building my shop’s design business. I didn’t even want to think about men.
“You’re scared.”
I snapped my head to stare at her. “What would I be scared of?”
“Plenty. It’s written all over your face. Your Cassidy charm helps other people, but shouldn’t you go after what you want?”
I wagged my finger at her. “Oh no, Madelyn. I’m back home. That’s the only thing I want. Now I just have to keep my shop going so I can stay.”
I could tell Madelyn wasn’t sure if she believed me, but it was true. Sure, I’d wondered how solid my charm really was, and if I was sacrificing certain things to be able to stay in Bliss, but in the end, I was a Cassidy. I’d make Buttons & Bows thrive. Everything else was gravy.
I pulled up the gravel driveway. From the looks of it—jeans and T-shirt stained with oil, a cap turned backward on his head, and work boots—Will had been tinkering under the hood. Apparently he could transition between a drafting table and mechanic’s toolbox. A man of all trades. He backed onto the grass as I pulled up next to his truck with its propped up hood.
He stepped up to my truck and opened the driver’s door. The hinges creaked and the truck rocked, the chassis groaning. I threw it into PARK, double-checked the parking break, and once I was convinced the truck wouldn’t roll back down the slight incline of the driveway, I hopped out.
“Don’t tell me you’re going to shoot that stuff up under your skin,” Will said as he slammed the door closed behind me.
“What stuff?” Madelyn asked.
Will shook his head at me. “Botox.”
“No way,” I said, as Madelyn added, “We’re here in an official capacity.” She walked around the front of the truck and joined us. “She fancies herself a dressmaking detective, I think.” She winked at me and I scowled at her.
“So you’re not here for injections,” Will said, tucking his oil rag in his back pocket, a playful smile on his lips. “That’s good.”
“She might if that’s what it takes to get people to tell her what she wants to know.”
Will arched a brow and studied me. “Let me guess. You want to prove Mrs. James is innocent.”
“As a matter of fact…”
“She just might,” Madelyn said. “She’s solved one crime. Why not two?”
Will nodded, folding his arms over his chest. “Maybe you need a new sign on your shop. Buttons and Bows Detective Agency.”
“Ha ha,” I said, but I couldn’t help my smile from spreading. “I’ll stick to fashion design, thank you very much, but I do want to help Mrs. James. I know she didn’t kill that man.”
“How do you know that? That day she came over to your place, she was acting pretty damn guilty, if you ask me.”
“There’s got to be more to it.” I laid my palm flat against my stomach. “I feel it. I just know she didn’t kill Macon Vance.”
“You’re right,” a voice said, the crunch of gravel sounding under steady footsteps. “Zinnia didn’t kill him, but there are plenty of other people who had motive.” We all turned to look for the person who’d spoken. A man walked up the driveway. He looked to be in his late forties. Slightly thinning dark blond hair and suntanned skin. A salmon-colored polo and khakis. Fit. I’d never seen him before in my life. “She’s innocent,” he said.
Will strode down the driveway, his arm outstretched. “Will Flores,” he said.
The other man took the offered hand and shook. “Steven Allen. Zinnia’s son-in-law.” He lifted his chin toward the Hughes’s house. “My wife’s in there. She didn’t want to come tonight, what with her mother being formally arrested, but I made her. Told her it doesn’t do her mother any good if her daughter holes up at home. Nope, better to get out, be seen, so everyone knows it’s nothing but a horrible mistake.”
Madelyn and I walked down the driveway to join Will, introducing ourselves to Steven.
“So you’re the dressmaker, come home to roost, all the way from New York. Zinnia talks about you constantly. Says you’re the spitting image of your cousin, and when she first saw you, it took her back to when she was a girl.”
I shook my head. “I don’t have any cousins or aunts and uncles.” Texana had had Cressida; Cressida had Loretta Mae, who’d only had Coleta—my grandmother, Nana—and Jimmy, but Uncle Jimmy had long since passed on. Nana and Granddaddy had only Mama. “Maybe the spitting image of Loretta Mae, my great-grandmother. People tell me that all the time.” My fingers fluttered over the streak of blond in my hair. “I think it’s this. We all have it.” Mine was more pronounced than Mama’s or Nana’s, but Loretta Mae’s had been blonder than mine.
“Could be, but a lot of people have that. You should see—”
A horn blared as a car drove past. Will raised his arm in a wave. “Old man Johnson,” he said, the look he gave me making me think he knew about the weather vane.
> “You’re making my daughter’s Margaret dress?” Steven asked me.
“Libby, yes. She’s such a sweet girl, and let me tell you, she’s going to look amazing!” Libby favored her mother, which was a good thing. Steven’s slightly pointy nose would not have been a good feature on the girl, and her dimple softened her look even when she seemed scared of her own shadow.
One side of his mouth curved up in a sad little smile. “She is a good girl, but she’s a mess right now over her grandmother’s arrest. I made her come with her mama just to get her out of the house.”
“Poor thing,” Madelyn said. The look she gave me, combined with the tilt of her head toward the Hughes’s house, said, Let’s go.
I held up a finger, telling her to wait one more minute; then I turned back to Mr. Allen. “Is the sheriff allowing your mother-in-law to have visitors? I’d really like to see her.”
He studied me for a long beat, as if he were searching through his memory banks. He suddenly snapped his fingers and his face lit up with recognition. “You’re the one that helped solve that murder a few months back, aren’t you? I read about that in the paper. Dressmaker catches murderer?” He chuckled, then added, “Think you can do that again? My wife and daughter will buy every dress you ever make if you do.”
“I just want to help Mrs. James. She’s been good to me since I’ve been back home and she’s… an old family friend.” I left out that she and Nana’s friendship had gone by the wayside, and if Steven knew anything about it, he kept it to himself.
“What, exactly, are you hoping to find out, Cassidy?” Will rocked back on his heels, arms folded across his chest.
I could tell he didn’t want me to get involved in another murder investigation, but not having grown up with an abundance of friends, I was thankful for the ones I had. And I’d protect them however I could. “I don’t know,” I answered. “But somebody must know something. Macon Vance had a reputation as a lady’s man.” I turned to Steven. “Is that what you meant, that plenty of people have motives? Lots of jealous or angry husbands out there?”
“Vance’s reputation crossed three counties. I sit on the board at the golf club. We checked him out before we hired him. Of course this was sixteen years ago. He came from a little town out in West Texas, and even back then, he already had a reputation. But he was a damn good golfer. He’s been on the pro circuit and we thought he’d be a good asset to the club. What we didn’t expect was that there were quite so many lonely wives in Bliss. Vance made his way through a good many of them.”
“Why keep him around if he did all that?” I asked.
He shrugged again. “Like I said, he’s a damn good golfer. Sure, he had a reputation. Every time his contract came up, the board vote was split, but the bottom line was that he raised the status of the club.”
I shook my head. Keeping someone around who was wreaking havoc in the community didn’t seem like a good idea. I would have voted nonrenewal, but that was just me.
Next door, a gaggle of giggling women sauntered down the walkway, leaving the party. “Come on, Madelyn,” I said. “We have to get in there.”
She gave me a look that said, No kidding. So why are you lollygagging around?
“I’ll come with you,” Steven said. “I’m thinking Sandra’s ready to come on home.”
“You can come, too,” I said to Will. “Check out all the wrinkle-free women.”
He picked up a tool and bent back over his truck’s engine. “Thanks, but no thanks. I’ll take the wrinkles and all on my woman.”
“Good to know,” I said, and as I walked to the Hughes’s house with Madelyn, it was my fingers that fluttered up to the space between my eyebrows where two little lines had started to etch into my skin. I quickly dropped them.
Madelyn was right. No more lollygagging.
Chapter 15
I’d always imagined that cosmetic procedures were common practice for women who felt it was part of their job to be beautiful—meaning actresses and models. But from the amount of cars parked along the street, there was apparently a pressing need for wrinkle management in North Texas.
When Madelyn, Steven, and I walked in, we all stopped short. The doctor’s house was teeming with women carrying wineglasses, laughing, chatting, and all lined up for a session with a syringe or a turn at the massage chair or the pedicure spa.
“Wow.” Madelyn stared wide-eyed at the mass of women with their perfectly coiffed hair and their blinged-out flip-flops and flirty cut T-shirts. “There’s more sparkle in here than at the Academy Awards,” she whispered.
I looked down at my own Gypsy Soule chocolate-colored sandals decked out in rhinestones and turquoise, a last season discounted item I’d picked up in New York before I’d moved back home. With an artfully messy updo, my brown capris—store bought—and my Cassidy Designs turquoise blouse, I fit right in with the rhinestone cowgirls and junk gypsies of Bliss.
As Madelyn and I linked arms, each taking a step into the Botox fold with our right foot forward, I felt like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz taking her first step on the Yellow Brick Road. I was starting to have second thoughts about trying to get information from this crowd of well-off women. I was out of my league. But Madelyn was my Scarecrow, urging me forward. “You’ll regret it if you change your mind,” she whispered.
“How do you always know what I’m thinking?” I whispered back.
She adjusted the strap of her Epiphanie camera bag, which doubled as her purse, over her shoulder. She never went anywhere without it. Or the camera she had tucked inside. “You advertise what you think on your face,” she said. “Your expressions tell a story. Don’t you ever mess with that.”
Steven walked past us, gave a little wave and a smile, and was instantly enveloped by the crowd. Madelyn and I took another step before a woman suddenly appeared in front of us, two glasses of wine in her hands, and an absolutely perfectly wrinkle-free face. “Welcome!” The sides of her mouth curved up in a smile, but it didn’t quite stretch all the way to her eyes. No wrinkles meant no laugh lines, but it was like the smile was incomplete.
She handed us the wineglasses, then picked up her own. “Chardonnay. Is that all right? If you’d rather have red, I have—”
“This is perfect,” I said, stopping her before she rattled off her entire bar selection.
Her smile broadened, but still looked stiff. “I’m Anna Hughes, Buckley’s wife.” She offered us a limp hand. Meemaw always said you could tell the strength of a person’s character by the strength of their handshake. Steven and Will’s handshake had looked solid and firm. Strong personalities, both of them. But when I took Mrs. Hughes’s hand, it felt even weaker than it looked, as if I were shaking hands with a coil of cooked spaghetti.
I recognized her from around town. Life in Bliss, being so small, meant everyone frequented the same places, particularly the women and the shops. I’d probably seen her in Seed-n-Bead, Josie’s store, or maybe at Villa Farina. “I’m Harlow, and this is Madelyn,” I said. “I’m a friend of Will’s, next door. Your husband helped Will move my grandmother’s armoire down from my attic a few days ago.”
“Right! The dressmaker! How wonderful.” Her voice was growing louder and more boisterous, and I wondered if it was because her face wouldn’t stretch to show her enthusiasm. I had to pay close attention to decipher some of her West Texas twangy accent. “He told me, but when I asked him what kind of designs he’d seen, he couldn’t give me a single detail. Isn’t that so like a man? I’ve been meanin’ to come by and welcome you back to town. And see some of your designs, of course. I hear you’re quite a force in the fashion world.”
The warmth of a blush rose to my cheeks. “Come by anytime,” I offered.
She got lost in a thought as she took a sip of her wine. “My sister would do just about anything to have her wedding dress made by an actual New York fashion designer,” she said absently.
I stood up straighter. Another commission would certainly help me with the shop a
nd all the repairs the old farmhouse needed. “When is she getting married?”
She shook her head and scoffed. “You mean the most recent one?”
“Oh. How—how many have there been?”
She leaned in closer and dropped her voice to a whisper. “This is number three. Third time’s a charm. Isn’t that what they say? Pft.” She flapped her hand around, sloshing her wine.
“I just made a wedding gown and bridesmaids dresses. I’d be happy to—”
Her palm went up and I stopped short. “I’m not in the wedding. I haven’t been in any of them.”
“Ah.” So what were we talking about? I was a little lost. “So maybe what you need is a Wow! dress,” I said. A vision of Mrs. Hughes in a long black taffeta gown, flower detailing on one of the thick straps suddenly filled my mind.
She glanced over my shoulder, the shadow that had cast its pall over her face lifting. “A Wow! dress. I like the sound of that. I sure would love to show all those people who…” She trailed off, looking at the glass of wine she held in her hand before directing her gaze down the back hallway. “A Wow! dress.” She nodded her head, her eyes narrowing as if she’d just come to an important decision. “I do think I need me one of those and I think you’re just the one to make it for me.”
I bustled with pride. It looked like Macon Vance wasn’t the only person in Bliss with a reputation. Every custom order I snagged meant I could keep the doors of Buttons & Bows open that much longer. And at this point, I wanted nothing more. This was good. I would help Anna Hughes show whoever she wanted whatever she wanted to show them, and her deepest desires would come true in the process. It was a win-win.
“Where’s the wedding?” I asked after I told her again to come by the shop. The issue at hand, though, was how to turn the conversation to Meemaw and whatever cosmetic procedures she’d had done, or to Macon Vance and Mrs. James. I was here to learn whatever I could.
“Out in the Panhandle. Amarillo,” she said, but her attention had fractured.
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