He cocked an eyebrow at me as he grabbed hold of the deputy sheriff badge sewn onto his uniform and tugged it. “Just had to ask the right people the right questions,” he said, the smallest bit of snide lacing his voice.
“Oh.” It was all I could think to say.
“Why are you musin’ over Macon Vance’s murder?” he asked, looking me square in the eyes.
I felt my hackles go up as he stared me down. How dare he just slide right into my truck, unasked, and start questioning me. Wasn’t it enough that I’d endured his accusations at the jailhouse when I’d visited Mrs. James? “Because he was killed with my scissors, you held my friend—”
“Mrs. James has been released.”
“I know but…”
I tucked a wayward strand of my hair back behind my ear and peered at him.
“Which means I’m back to square one.”
“Maybe you’re missing something.”
He scoffed. “What in the devil would I be missin’? I’ve covered every aspect of this case from every possible angle.”
I debated what to tell Deputy Sheriff Gavin McClaine, but in the end, I decided I needed to spill the whole truth, come what may. I took a deep breath before saying, “Did you know that Macon Vance was Libby Allen’s biological father?”
He stared at me, his eyes narrowing. “Go on.”
“And he didn’t like that she’s a Margaret…” I stopped as I saw the wheels turning behind Gavin’s eyes and the realization that what I was saying wasn’t redirecting him to some other suspect, like Steven Allen, but was serving as another nail in Mrs. James’s coffin, alibi or not. A shiver worked up my spine. “And Anna Hughes says that Trudy Lafayette killed Macon Vance,” I said, hating that it was even a possibility.
He didn’t even blink. “That right,” he said matter-of-factly. “And how does she figure that little bitty old lady could thrust a pair of scissors into a man’s chest?”
Exactly my reaction. Not to mention the lack of motive, another hole in that scenario. Plenty of people could have wanted Macon Vance dead. Steven Allen. Sandra Allen. Any of his conquests, or their husbands, for that matter. The members of the country club’s board who wanted Vance gone because of his extracurricular activities. Anna Hughes, so the man wouldn’t corrupt her husband.
Trudy’s name circled in my head like a swirling funnel cloud, but I couldn’t come up with a possible motive for her to kill the golf pro.
Which meant Anna Hughes was lying.
Another idea hit me and I snapped my fingers together. What if Trudy had somehow found out about Vance being Libby’s father, had tried to blackmail him, but he turned against her? She could have summoned superhuman strength if he’d attacked her. “Trudy Lafayette is no weakling. If she felt threatened, she might could have done it. Don’t people do crazy things in the face of danger? What if he attacked her first?”
Even as I said the words, a wave of nausea crept up my throat. I felt like I was throwing Trudy under the bus.
“Uh-uh. There was no sign of struggle. Clean thrust, in and out. No scuff marks on the floor. Nothing that would lead us to believe there was a scuffle of any kind.”
“Right.” How would she have found out, anyway? Plus, there was still the issue of the home invasion and her toxic injection. Someone, not Macon Vance, had done that to her.
“What did you want to see me about?” I asked after a spell.
“We found a partial print on your scissors,” he said. “We ran it against Zinnia James’s print and it’s not a match. We’re trying to get a match. Thought you’d want to know. Someone else definitely handled them.”
My heart thudded in my ears. “Are you saying you believe me now? That I didn’t have anything to do with this?”
He hesitated for a good, long minute. “Well, now, I didn’t say that, did I?”
“But if…”
“They could belong to someone who picked them up in your shop. Doesn’t your mama help you out some? And your girl, Gracie Flores.”
The thudding grew deafening. Surely he didn’t suspect either of them?
As if he could read my mind, he said, “We’re leaving no stone unturned.”
You should crawl right back under the rock you came from, I thought, but aloud I said, “They had nothing to do with this.”
“We’ll see.”
Trying to prove my own innocence was one thing… and was plenty motivating. But if Gavin McClaine suspected Gracie Flores or my mother and he thought I was going to sit by and do nothing, he had another think coming.
“I really have to get going,” I said, holding up the sketchbook I’d flung at him a few minutes ago. “Dresses to fit, and all that.”
He opened his door, but gave me a good long look before getting out. “Keep yourself outta trouble,” he said, one arm stretched out against the truck’s cab, the other holding the door.
I made myself smile. Meemaw always said you can catch more bees with honey than with vinegar. I felt full of the acidic stuff at the moment, but I made myself look sugar sweet. “I’m not a troublemaker, Deputy.”
“That’s not the way I remember it, Ms. Cassidy.”
As the words floated away from him, a niggling sensation settled in the pit of my stomach. I felt the heaviness of someone’s troubled stare. My gaze was pulled to the Flores house, and sure enough, there, rocking back on his heels, was Will. His mouth was drawn into a tight line.
Gavin McClaine tipped his hat at me before he ambled back to his SUV cruiser. Halfway there, he noticed Will and made the same cowboy gesture. Will notched his chin up in a noncommittal response, then turned his gaze to me as I rumbled out of the Hughes’s driveway, throwing my hand up in a wave, my mind scrambling to figure out who in the world could have killed Macon Vance.
Chapter 34
I’d come up blank on the investigative front. I had no new information. Nothing that was suddenly pointing me in the direction of the killer. I’d called Josie to check in, then made a quick stop by the hospital to see Trudy, but Fern met me at the door, stepping out before I could step in. “How’s she doing?” I asked.
“Resting,” she said. No pleasantries. No extra tidbits of information. Thinking Trudy could be guilty of killing Macon Vance made my stomach clench. Of course Fern couldn’t know what Anna Hughes had told me… could she?
“Will she be able to go home soon?”
Fern ignored my question, instead grabbing me by the elbow and steering me away from Trudy’s door. She spoke through her teeth. “You haven’t fitted the dresses?” It was an accusation, not a question, and I wondered who she’d heard that bit of information from.
Once again, Anna Hughes was the name that came to mind.
I waved my hand, pshawing. “We got a little off schedule, but I have the notebook and I’m headed back to the country club right now.” I patted the bag that hung from my side.
Her expression was dubious at best, so I pulled the moleskin book out of my bag. Before I had it all the way clear, she ripped it from my hands and flipped through it. I held my breath, knowing she’d discover the missing pages in just a matter of seconds.
Less, actually. Once again, like a bolt of lightning heading straight for a roof’s lightning rod, the book flopped open to the ripped pages. “What in heaven’s name—”
“I can explain,” I said, throwing up my hands, even though I had no idea why Anna had ripped out those particular pages of the book.
Slowly, she raised her eyes, leveling her gaze with mine. “Do you know what this means?” she said, her voice suddenly tinged with fear instead of the anger of a moment ago.
All I knew for sure was that I just wanted to go back to dressmaking and forget all the drama that seemed to be like starch in the fabric of my life. I’d had more dedicated sewing time when I worked for Maximilian, even if it hadn’t been my designs I’d sewn. But still, I knew it was better to be home, making my own creations, and creating a life for myself in my hometown than it would have
been to stay in New York, nothing more than a minion.
Sure, this was the second murder I’d gotten wrapped up in, but I cared about the people of Bliss. I had a chance to help bring our blissful little town back to peace, and that’s something I never would have done in New York. Mama had joked that my gift wasn’t being a detective, but I wasn’t so sure solving little mysteries didn’t have something to do with the power my creations had.
Every trace of color had drained from Fern’s face, and she wobbled on her clunky, white leather lace-up shoes. Her elastic-waisted pants were twisted, the crotch seams angling to her right hip. I tried to guide her to a chair across the hall. “Do you need to sit down?”
She shook her head no, but then she shuffled to the chair, collapsing into it. Fern Lafayette had seen better days.
“Miss Lafayette?” I lay my hand on her shoulder. “Fern? Do you need a doctor?”
Her hand shot up, clenching mine in a death grip with her wrinkled hand. “I warned Trudy to keep her mouth shut, but she wouldn’t listen.” Her voice dropped lower and she darted a glance up and down the hallway. “It’s Sandra James.”
I started. “You mean Sandra Allen?” I asked, grimacing as I pried her hand from mine, clasping it in both of mine. “What about her?” I couldn’t infuse her with calmness, but I could offer her comfort.
She jabbed her heavy-knuckled index finger toward Trudy’s hospital door. “If only people would just be with who they’re supposed to be with. Trudy’s on death’s door because of her. Do you know what’s ripped out?”
I had mental whiplash as she went from true love to accusing Mrs. James’s daughter of attacking Trudy to the missing pages in the notebook. “I thought it was all notes about the Margaret dresses.”
“Well, of course it is,” she snapped in her Southern drawl. “Truth of the matter is, I’m sure there’s quite a bit missing now that you’ll have to figure out on your own, but I hear you’re good at that sort of thing. You do know the pageant is tonight? Don’t you let me or Trudy down by messing up our gowns.”
I blew out a heavy breath. “Yes, ma’am, I know it’s tonight, and I won’t mess anything up. We’ll get it done,” I reassured her. Even if it killed me. “I have help, and we’ve called the girls back early to make sure they’ll be the perfect Margarets. But…” I had to get to the bottom of what she was saying. “What was that about Sandra Allen?”
“It’s all there on the pages of the book.”
“What is?” I asked.
“The undeniable truth, that’s what.”
“Okay.” I waited for more. One person’s truth was another person’s lie, as Meemaw used to say.
She looked up and down the hallway again, then pulled on my arm, yanking me down until I was kneeling in front of her.
“It’s that woman,” she said. “Don’t get me wrong. Plenty of people fertilize flower beds they shouldn’t, and who am I to judge? That golfer spread his seed all over town. That Sandra should have seen it coming.” She shook her head, looking like she thought Sandra was the biggest dolt this side of the Brazos River. “After all, he did it with her, so why wouldn’t he do it to her? Trudy knew it. She just knew, and she started keeping track. Writing down when she’d see them sneaking around. That’s Trudy. She always keeps track of everything. From the time we were little, she’s fancied herself a spy. Keeping track of love and death and everything in between. They thought they were so sly. What comes around, goes around, Trudy says. Ain’t that the truth?”
Meemaw said the same thing. It was karma. You do good, and it’ll come back to you tenfold. You go messing with the natural order of things, and it’ll bite you in the behind every time. It was clear that Fern and Trudy thought people should fertilize only their own flower beds, and I had to agree. “She saw Sandra and Macon Vance sneaking around and she wrote it down?” No wonder Sandra had been so distraught, not wanting to go out after Macon’s murder. It wasn’t over her mother being arrested—or at least not entirely. If what Fern was saying was true, her lover had been murdered.
But why would Anna Hughes have ripped out the pages? Unless…
Holy fried catfish. I stared at Fern. “Did Macon Vance… er… fertilize Anna Hughes’s garden, too?”
She rattled her head, nodding like I’d drilled deep and hit black gold. “You know he did. What comes around goes around, one way or another.”
“Trudy knew about it, and you think that’s why she was attacked?”
I thought Fern’s vigorous nod would knock the curl right out of her hair. “From my lips to God’s ear, as sure as the day is long, I know it.”
A nurse squeaked by in her whimsical lilac-patterned Dansko clogs and lavender scrubs. She stopped when she saw Fern. “Doctor’s coming by to see your sister, ma’am.”
Like a rusty bullet from an old Colt .45, Fern stood and followed the nurse to Trudy’s room on wobbly legs. She stopped at the door, holding the moleskin notebook out to me. “Do those fittings, Harlow. Knowing the pageant is going on’ll give Trudy strength.”
I took the notebook from her, tucking it back into my purse. I didn’t know what to do with Fern’s new information. Without the pages from the book, there was nothing to link Sandra to Macon Vance. Should I tell the deputy about it? But it was all hearsay, and I hated the idea of pointing the finger at someone else without more information. I’d already done it twice and guilt coiled in my stomach over it.
As I left the hospital and started up my old truck, I decided I had to wait. There was enough on my plate already. I’d left Mrs. James’s dress in a garment bag hooked to the knob on the dress form in my dining room. I’d left Mrs. James a message that I had a get-out-of-jail surprise for her, and to go on in to Buttons & Bows and pick up the outfit for the pageant. Josie and the Margaret gowns were waiting on me. Plus, Will had given me a look I just couldn’t decipher. The deputy was a thorn in my side. And Libby and Gracie didn’t know they were cousins. All this, plus a whole barrel full of family secrets—not the least of which was my own relation to Gracie Flores—had my mind spinning every which way.
I pushed it all aside, turning the truck toward the country club. Trudy may be in the hospital and Fern may think she was on the brink of death, but I’d seen a vision of her in a smart nautical polyester pantsuit. Trudy still had years left in her yet, and I was not going to let this be the year the Margaret pageant fell apart.
Chapter 35
Before long I was passing through the banquet room. Table after table was decked in white linen tablecloths, gold chargers at each place setting. No detail was left undone. A harried woman scurried past me, adjusting the vases of yellow roses at the center of each table while a man dressed in chef’s whites arranged chafing dishes on the long buffet table.
“What’s on the menu?” I asked as I patted the velvet curtain, looking for a way backstage.
The answer was gruff. “Barbecue.”
Enough said. Served on china, even barbecue was elevated to a new height. I finally found my way backstage and into the area we were using as a dressing room. The exact spot where Mrs. James and Macon Vance had argued, I realized, but I pushed that unpleasant thought out of my head.
Josie and I spent the next two hours going through every gown, scouring the pages of Trudy’s notebook, and matching which dress went with which person, affixing little slips of paper with the correct name to the corresponding dress. Along the way, I got the lowdown on the dress rehearsal, minus the dresses. Josie took a breath, and finished her story. “So I told Mr. and Mrs. Allen to be here at five o’clock to get into their Sam and Margaret Houston costumes. Neither one of them looked all that excited about it.”
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 t
he 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!”
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