“Family and history,” I said. “Being in my great-grandmother’s home makes me feel closer to her.”
He smirked, as if family were the worst possible reason to do anything. Clearly it was a fundamental difference between us. I’d come to realize that family was the best reason to do anything, and that being back at 2112 Mockingbird Lane meant that Loretta Mae wasn’t gone from my life.
I was dotted with sweat by the time Quinton was done snapping me sitting at Loretta Mae’s old Singer, by one of my garments, and standing, arms folded across my chest, in front of the privacy screen that doubled as a changing room. The screen resembled oversized window shutters connected by antique hinges. I’d taken down some of the fabric I normally kept draped over the side, and positioned just one hanger with a dress that perfectly represented my country girl design perspective, from one of the upper slats.
He ended the shoot by having the three of us—Midori, Beaulieu, and me—in front of our dress forms, one of each of our pieces showcased behind us. I snuck a glance on either side of me. Neither one of the other designers smiled, but me? I was giddy. I stood next to two of the top designers of our time—inside Buttons & Bows—and I was going to be in D Magazine. I couldn’t help it. One side of my mouth lifted. This was a proud moment.
“We’re good,” Quinton finally said. He kept his camera handy but wandered to the sitting area and the tray of glasses Mama had set out, hemming and hawing as he picked up first one, then another, and a third canning jar from the array. Finally he settled on one and poured himself a tall drink of sweet tea from the pitcher next to the lemonade. He settled back while Midori stretched out on the red velvet settee and Beaulieu sat on the love seat, absently flipping through a home decor magazine, scowling as if he could hardly stand the feel of the paisley fabric.
Lindy Reece stood by the rack of ready-to-wear clothes just outside the little area. “Thanks for making the trip out here for the shoot,” she began, addressing Midori and Beaulieu.
“It was a mistake. I feel ill,” Beaulieu said under his breath, but loudly enough to make sure we all heard.
Unbidden, a line from a Taylor Swift song flitted into my head. Why’d you have to be so mean? It was a good question, but one I couldn’t answer. I gave up trying to figure him out. I had to get through the rest of today. Gracie and her friend Holly would be wearing my garments. As long as I focused on them, I could keep Beaulieu and his ornery attitude at bay.
“Yes, well, it’ll be worth it in the end,” the journalist said. “Concessions must often be made for the sake of a story.”
Mama came into the room just in time to hear this snippet of conversation, fresh pitchers of sweet tea and lemonade in her hands. She stopped short just behind where Beaulieu sat. She raised her arms and my heart seized.
She lifted the pitchers higher.
I started. She wouldn’t dare
The pitcher tilted forward, the amber liquid sloshing.
Oh Lord. She couldn’t. She wouldn’t! “Mama . . . ,” I said with a hiss.
She blinked, caught my eye, and instantly pulled her arm back. Instead of splashing onto Beaulieu, the tea sloshed over the spout of the pitcher and onto the floor.
Beaulieu must have sensed what had almost happened. He whipped around, gently patting his hand over the gelled hairs of his faux hawk. “What the hell’s the matter with you people?”
“You people?” Nana said, venom dripping from her heavy Southern accent. She’d been hanging back, sitting on the steps of the staircase, the scallop-edged skirt in her lap, a threaded needle gripped between a rubber-encased index finger and thumb, but now she surged forward. I threw my arm out, stopping her from plowing straight into Beaulieu.
“Nana, don’t,” I said. The last thing I wanted was for Lindy Reece to get a bunch of ammunition to write about the crazy Cassidy family from Bliss. It might sell magazines, but not for the right reasons.
It didn’t take a genius to figure out what Mama might have done with that pitcher of tea, and Beaulieu wasn’t about to let it go. “You’re all hillbillies,” he spit. He was laying it on thick.
My arm still held Nana back. She tensed, but stayed put.
“Michel—”
He cut me off and his attention cut back to me like a guard dog suddenly training his attention on a new sound. “This place . . .” He gestured to the room at large. “You’re a disgrace to the fashion industry.”
And like a worn length of elastic stretched too thin, I snapped. My open palm flew to my chest and I felt heat rise to the surface of my skin. “You’re in my hometown,” I said, my voice raw and edgy. “This is my home . . . and my business. How dare you come in here and call us hillbillies and . . . and . . . ?”
“And a disgrace to fashion,” Nana whispered in my ear, as if I could forget.
“Right, and a disgrace. My designs are . . . are . . .” I saw the dress Jeanette had taken from the garment bag and pressed, registered somewhere in the back of my mind that it was familiar, and remembered what Orphie had said about Beaulieu. She wasn’t the only one who’d borrowed a design from someone else. “They are original,” I said.
A collective gasp went up all around. Jeanette lost her grip on her oversized shoulder bag. It fell with a thud, her wallet, lip gloss, and other personal items spilling onto the floor. Orphie pressed her fingers to her mouth. Midori, Mama, Nana, and even Beaulieu himself stared at me. It had been a veiled accusation, and one that I couldn’t take back now that it had been spoken aloud, much as I wished I could.
“You must be the only virtuous one left in this room,” he said, looking around, pausing on each person as if he knew some big secret about each and every one of them. He ended on Jeanette, holding out the magazine he’d been perusing. I stared, flabbergasted, as she stood from collecting her things, hurriedly taking the glossy from him and setting it back on the table. As if he couldn’t have reached the table himself. Diva. It was the only word that came to mind. And Jeanette was his lackey.
The scratching of Lindy’s pen against her notepad sounded magnified, but my blood pounded in my ears and drowned it out, the sound louder than a thunderous summer storm. “Not virtuous, but honest.” Orphie had experienced a blip in that virtue, but I bet that deep down she wished she could turn back the clock and take back her momentary lapse of judgment.
Beaulieu just kept talking. “All of you think you deserve success more than I do, is that it? Why? Because I didn’t grow up poor? Because I’m a man?”
“Michel—”
He held up a hand, stopping the rest of his name from slipping off my tongue. “My work will stand on its own. My designs will blow your mind, and anyone who reads the article and sees what I do will know that you”—he pointed at me—“and you”—he pointed at Midori—“are outclassed. Neither one of you should be here.”
I could picture him sitting on a stool, ranting to some television producer about his sob story, going for the sympathy vote from the viewing public, only this wasn’t Project Runway, Heidi Klum and Tim Gunn were nowhere to be found, and I wasn’t feeling any sympathy for the man. He was boorish and . . . and . . . and just downright uncivil.
Someone’s stomach rumbled. As if the sound triggered a Pavlovian response, Midori reached for a glass and poured herself some lemonade. Jeanette followed, and before long, everyone had a chunky Mason jar filled with sweet tea or lemonade and was munching on a treat from the plate Mama had placed on the coffee table. She might be mad as all get out at Beaulieu, but she wouldn’t deny him one of her famous almond icebox cookies. Nana had brought two containers of her goat cheese, along with a package of rice crackers. Then Mama offered to make fried chicken for lunch, but Beaulieu shook his head.
“I’m going to lunch before the outdoor shoot with the models.” He downed the rest of his tea, put his empty glass back on the coffee table, and shot a scathing look at Jeanette. “Make sure everything’s ready,” he said. “After it’s done, we’re going back to Dallas.”
Beaulieu stormed off to the bathroom again, leaving the rest of us feeling muddled and angry. Calling him horrible was an understatement, and I felt enormously sorry for Jeanette. I already had Gracie Flores, but if I’d needed another assistant, I would have hired her just to save her from her horrid boss.
Midori gathered up the Mason jar glasses on the tray and carried them back to the kitchen. Quinton had gathered his camera gear and was at the door, Lindy by his side. “We’ll get a bite to eat, then meet you back here. Six models, right?”
“Two for each of us, yes—”
A chilling scream ripped through the air, zapping the rest of the words from my mouth.
My heart shot to my throat and I surged past Jeanette, through the dining room—and smack into Midori, who stood stone-still in the center of the kitchen. She fell into me, knocking my glasses awry, her feet twisting with mine. I caught her wrists, holding her upright as she gripped my upper arms. “What’s wrong?” All I could think was that an enormous Texas spider was loose, or that Meemaw was playing practical jokes.
“M-m-m . . .” Midori got stuck on the first letter, and my mind jumped to Meemaw. Except that Midori didn’t know Meemaw, and certainly would not attribute any otherworldly goings-on inside Buttons & Bows to my great-grandmother.
“M-m-m . . . ,” I mused, and then it hit me. “Michel?”
Behind me, Jeanette gasped.
Midori pointed past me. I turned, following her gaze to the half-open door of the bathroom . . . and to the sprawled body on the floor.
“B-B-Beaulieu,” Midori stammered. And then she said what I already knew. “H-h-he’s d-d-dead.”
Chapter 5
A million thoughts raced through my mind, but I shoved them all away as I barreled past Midori. “No, no, no,” I muttered. This couldn’t be happening again. He’d been fine a minute ago. He couldn’t be dead!
I fell to my knees beside him, pressing my fingers against the flesh of his neck. No pulse. No rise and fall of his chest. I lowered my head, listening for any trace of ragged or faint breathing.
Nothing.
My pounding heart climbed to my throat. I squeezed my eyes shut as if that would make this nightmare go away. But when I opened them again, my head grew fuzzy and my vision blurred. From somewhere behind me, Jeanette and Midori sobbed, but all I could see was Michel flat on the floor in front of me, his nose bloodied, his face drawn and pale.
He was most definitely dead.
It took about two shakes before Hoss McClaine showed up to gather up control of the situation. A dead man in the dressmaking shop wasn’t an everyday occurrence in Bliss. Madelyn Brighton, one of my best friends and the official town photographer, showed up, too. Lickety-split, she snapped pictures, wrapped up her photographic cataloging of the scene, and Bliss’s finest made a preliminary assessment. Massive coronary. It was unusual given Beaulieu’s age, but it was the obvious explanation.
We’d all told the same story. Lindy and Quinton had arrived first, followed by Midori and Beaulieu and then Jeanette.
“His bad attitude might could have made his heart stop tickin’,” Mama told her fiancé sheriff, nodding as if that were surely the explanation. I wasn’t as convinced that his orneriness had done him in. He was likely cursed with bad genes, poor man.
Beaulieu’s body had been taken away and all that was left was a heavy pall hanging over my shop. Well, that and Deputy Gavin McClaine, who stood in front of me with his legs apart, a Bliss Sheriff’s Department cap on his head, and a disdainful scowl on his face. True, Beaulieu was dead, and also true, it was a horrible turn of luck that it happened at Buttons & Bows. But there was nothing sinister about it. Nothing that warranted the deputy sheriff hanging around—if you didn’t count the fact that this was the fourth dead body I’d been associated with in recent months. My misfortune.
The deputy had been back in Bliss a few months less than I had, and I still had trouble reconciling the shy boy he’d been back in school with the cocky deputy he’d grown up to be. No more ninety-pound weakling. He was lean and lanky and full of attitude. And from the googly eyes Orphie was making at him, she’d noticed, too.
Gavin measured in at about five ten, and while there was no spark between us, he was handsome, khaki deputy uniform and all. Whenever I saw him, he was clean shaven, but I was sure he let his whiskers go scruffy when he was off duty. Another thing I knew from experience that Orphie would like about him.
Normally I could quickly picture a person’s ideal outfit to help make his or her dreams come true, but I had been unable to get a vision of him in anything other than his khakis—I’d come to wonder if he ever took a day off.
He adjusted his cream-colored straw cowboy hat, flashed a smile that irritated me to the bone, and cleared his throat, continuing in his heavy Southern drawl. “So he just up and died, is that it?” he said, as if there was more to it than what we’d all already said.
“For pity’s sake, Gavin, I told you everything I know. We were all here for the first of two photo shoots. We were getting ready to break for lunch before coming back for the second part of the day. He went to the bathroom, and then he . . . he died.”
“Just like that.”
“Yes, just like that.” Oh, how I wished someone had been with him . . . that we’d had enough time to try to resuscitate him. We could be talking weddings instead of death.
“And you have no idea what happened?”
If only I did. “Maybe he was sick and we didn’t know?” I suggested, making a mental note to myself to ask Jeanette if he had an illness. For my own peace of mind. I wanted to get to the bottom of what had happened to Michel Ralph Beaulieu.
“Did you hear anything? Did he cry out in pain? Anything at all?”
“Gavin—”
“Deputy,” he said, correcting me.
“Deputy,” I said, letting the word slide real slow from my tongue. “I just told you everything I know. He was fit to be tied at having to be here in Bliss, but he didn’t seem sick. If I knew anything else, I’d tell you. He. Died.”
Gavin dipped his chin and glared at me, and despite the grim situation, I had to smile to myself. The man was too big for his britches and he hated it when I called him by his given name instead of Deputy McClaine. It was a power thing. Being the son of a sheriff his whole life meant Gavin had some big shoes to fill, something he worked mighty hard at doing. “So he did, Harlow. Bad luck for the guy.”
“Bad luck for Harlow,” Orphie said. “That it happened in her shop, I mean.”
Gavin turned toward her, dipping his chin to acknowledge her. “Got that right. But Harlow has a way of attracting death.” He winked. “Best watch yourself, little lady.”
Little lady? Oh, brother. I ignored his attempt at flirtation with Orphie because something he’d said had taken up residence inside me and I didn’t like it. “It was a horrible accident,” I said, hoping to God I was right, because no matter how I looked at it, having a man die in my shop was not going to be good for business.
• • •
It felt like forever, but finally Gavin McClaine had gotten every bit of information we had to give on the unfortunate death of Michel Ralph Beaulieu. Orphie walked him to the door, where they chatted for another few minutes, him leaning up against the doorjamb, and her with her shoulders curled in and looking at him through her eyelashes. Country courting was sweeter than a thick, creamy bite of pecan pie.
I didn’t know if the magazine article was still a go. The models left the second Gavin gave the go-ahead, and Quinton and Lindy Reece had been next to hightail it out of Buttons & Bows, so I couldn’t ask them. Plus it didn’t feel right to be worrying about it on the heels of Beaulieu’s death. As I moved the dress forms to the back of the room next to the portable clothing rack, a hungry stomach growled. I pinpointed it to Jeanette. Her boss had died, but the poor girl was starving. M
idori heard it, too, and took Jeanette by the arm. “I am hungry, too. Come on.”
“Fried chicken,” Mama said from the dining room. “No need to go anywhere. I was fixin’ to whip some up.”
“Sounds good,” Orphie said, closing the door after Gavin finally left.
But Midori shook her head. “No, no. I think we all need a change of scenery.”
Jeanette nodded, her face ashen, her lips drawn down on either side of her mouth. I could almost hear every thought going through her head. What do I do now? Where will I work? Will I be paid? Who’ll take care of Beaulieu’s appointments and affairs? Why did he have to die?
This last question was the one that weighed on my mind. I was sure Gavin must have asked it already, but not in front of me—and I wanted to know the answer. “Jeanette, was Beaulieu sick?”
But instead of the answer I’d been hoping for—something along the lines of “Yes, he had a history of heart problems” or “Of course, he’s been in poor health for years”—she shook her head emphatically, what little color was left on her cheeks draining altogether. “No. That man was healthy as a horse.”
Midori guided Jeanette toward the front door. She still looked like a lost child, wide-eyed and helpless, and I thought Midori might be right. We’d all suffered a loss today, Jeanette most of all. Getting out of Buttons & Bows and going someplace neutral would hopefully help her state of mind.
And then there were four. Mama gathered up the Mason jars, Nana picked up the pitchers, and they headed to the kitchen and Orphie moved around the front room straightening pillows, all of them avoiding the white elephant in the room.
But I couldn’t avoid it in my head. Death had knocked on the door of my world since I’d been back in Bliss, but now it had made its way inside.
Chapter 6
A Custom Fit Crime Page 4
