Pleating for Mercy amdm-1

by Melissa Bourbon

  All the money talk reminded me of the conversation I’d had with Gina at the bakery. She’d said Nell met with a lawyer. I slid another pin into the fabric. “Did Nell have a will?”

  Josie shifted on the milk crate and the pin met the resistance of her hip, pricking her. “I . . . Oh!” She jerked, tottering on the makeshift platform, nearly losing her balance. “I don’t know,” she said, righting herself.

  We were distracted by the jingling of the bell on the front door of the shop. A girl stepped in. Her owlish brown eyes lit up as they zeroed in on Josie and me in the workroom. She looked like a typical teenager: jean shorts, flat-soled flip-flops, tank top, dewy and freshfaced like the girl-next-door image, but she could barely contain the excitement oozing from her pores. She waved, her arm making a back-and-forth half-circle motion like she was on a parade float. “Are you Harlow?” she cooed.

  She left the door open slightly, practically skipping across the room until she was by my side.

  I waved back at her. “That’s me. Would you—” Before I could finish asking her to shut the door, the bell jingled again and it closed. I peered around her.

  Will Flores was back, swagger and all. Nobody could pull off a goatee, black V-neck T-shirt, jeans, and black cowboy boots like a true country boy, and Will had the look down solid. He probably slept in those boots. “Don’t be shy,” he told the girl, propelling her into the workroom.

  I looked from him to the girl and . . . Oh, my God. In my mind, I’d imagined his daughter to be ten years old or so. This girl was practically grown up—give or take a few years. I straightened up from my crouched position, momentarily tongue-tied. I’d already mentally mapped out basic sewing instructions for a little girl. I quickly regrouped, shifting my ideas to something easy but more grown-up.

  I found my voice again and extended my arm. “You must be Gracie.”

  She looked at my hand like she wasn’t quite sure what to do with it. Okay, maybe not quite grown up. Finally she shook it. “Yes, ma’am,” she said. “I’m Gracie Flores. Nice to meet you.”

  She had her father’s coloring, a beautiful olive skin tone, high cheekbones, and shimmering highlights in her hair. But whereas his eyes were dark and sparkled with mischief, hers were bigger and . . . I looked closer. Oh, I’d thought they were brown, but seeing them close up, I realized they were jade green with golden brown flecks. Or were they golden brown with jade green flecks?

  Either way, she was ethereal, shining from the inside out. This, I thought, is what a fairy looks like.

  A ray of light from the window bathed the room in a warm glow. Gracie smiled and it hit me. I’d been tossing around the idea of an autumn fashion show. If she could work an outfit and stay upright in high heels, she’d rock the runway. If her mom and dad would let her be a model for a day.

  “Any more unexplained drafts, Cassidy?” Will settled back on the heels of his boots as Josie scurried behind the privacy screen.

  I peered at him. Why was he averse to using my first name? “No, no more unexplained drafts,” I said. I knew exactly what was causing them now—her name was Meemaw—but I kept this tidbit to myself.

  He stayed on the shop’s side of the French doors—chivalrous through and through—and adjusted the cowboy hat perched on his head, flashing a grin that said I told you I’d be back. “Gracie,” he said, “this is Harlow Cassidy.”

  I was distracted by his hat. Most Texans had at least two: a straw hat for everyday wear and a leather or felt one for fancier occasions. Will’s was black straw. He was a cross between Tim McGraw and Toby Keith, with those intense eyes, a swarthy complexion, and the swagger to pull it all together.

  I’d seen him twice now and I couldn’t help but wonder how much hair he had under the hats he wore. A full head, or was he a thirtysomething balding man trying to hide the evidence?

  “So you’re making a wedding dress?” Gracie rubbed her hands together in front of her, then clasped them. “That’s so awesome!”

  I felt I could almost see into her soul through her wide, glowing eyes. She looked like I felt being back in Bliss—all enthusiasm and spirit and energy. If I were to make her an outfit, it would be a lovely sheath dress beneath a whimsical, flirty sheer top layer embossed with tiny hearts. She had a touch of the romantic in her personality and I wondered what she wished for when she was alone.

  “She’s making the most beautiful dress in the world,” Josie said, stepping out from behind the screen. Her eyes were still puffy from her earlier tears, but she looked better than she had this morning. It was as if the wedding gown was already bolstering her spirits.

  “I can’t wait to get started.”

  I froze, only my gaze flying from Gracie to her father. “Get started . . . on what?”

  Chapter 21

  “Loretta Mae said I’d be helping you.”

  My brain suddenly turned slushy. How did we get from sewing lessons to collaborating on a wedding dress? “She did?”

  Gracie’s hair swept over her shoulders as she gave an enthusiastic nod. “Kind of like your assistant! Isn’t that so cool? I just can’t believe my first project gets to be a wedding dress.”

  “Whoa, m’ija.” Will wrapped his hand around his daughter’s arm and pulled her back toward him. “Lessons, remember? That’s what the deal was. I do a little work on the side here, and you get to hone your craft.”

  Gracie nodded. “I know, but Loretta Mae said I was born to be a—”

  The pipes above us groaned with a loud clanking sound that drowned out Gracie’s words.

  “Sorry—I couldn’t hear,” I said. “What did Loretta Mae say?”

  “She said I was—”

  The pipes rumbled, louder this time, and it sounded like an angry foghorn.

  I stared at the ceiling. Meemaw. I had a feeling my great-grandmother wasn’t going to let me hear just what, exactly, she had told Gracie. “You’re diabolical,” I muttered under my breath so Josie, Will, and Gracie couldn’t hear me. But I knew Meemaw did when the pipes gave a final rolling boom before settling back into silence.

  Will tilted his head back, studying the ceiling. “Hiring a plumber might not be a bad idea.”

  I started to wave away the suggestion, but remembered the kitchen sink and changed my mind. “Are you offering—”

  He threw his hands up. “Whoa. I’m not a plumber, I’m a—”

  The pipes moaned again, louder this time.

  Gracie leaned back against her dad, a spasm of concern crossing her face. She looked up at the ceiling like she was afraid the pipes might burst any second and shower us all with rusty water. “That sounded bad.”

  “This old house just has . . . spirit,” I said. To myself I added, And her name is Loretta Mae. A rattling, like heavy chains being dragged across a sheet of metal, came from the kitchen.

  Gracie’s face turned pale. “Dad . . .” she implored.

  “I’m not a plumber—”

  “But you can still fix it, right?” She arched her neck back to look at him. “Please?”

  The adoration of his daughter and her faith that he could fix anything wore him down. Plus she snuggled up under his arm when the pipes howled again. “I’ll put it on the list,” he said.

  She wrapped her arms around him and gave him a hug, exhaling her relief. “Thanks, Dad.” She looked at me. “Doesn’t that freak you out?”

  Another clank came from the kitchen and the fine hairs on the back of my neck stirred. Meemaw’s spirit was as feisty as she had been in life. “They’re just harmless pipes,” I said loudly enough so she’d hear me, wherever she was.

  Josie appeared from behind the privacy screen, looking a little bewildered. She was fully dressed and had her purse slung over her shoulder.

  How in the world had she gotten out of the muslin? The only way was to . . . “Oh, no. Josie. You didn’t undo all the pins, did you?”

  “I didn’t touch them.”

  “Then how—”

  She handed me the
mock-up. “It just sort of . . . opened up and let me out,” she said, as if it was completely normal for pins to undo and then repin themselves, which we both knew wasn’t possible.

  I stared at the muslin. I hadn’t finished marking the left side with my dressmaker’s marker, but it was done now, the line continuing from under the arm to the waist. Even the darts were marked.

  Josie looked spooked and ready to hightail it out of here, but she stopped to chat with Gracie. “I didn’t know you sewed.”

  “Oh, I love it,” she said. “I plan on being a designer, just like Harlow.”

  Their conversation floated around me. I vaguely registered Will giving Gracie a peck on the cheek, then waving as he headed out the door, but everything else had faded as I considered a new idea. The sheriff thought the murder weapon might have come from my shop. If it had been taken by someone who’d been in Buttons & Bows that day, had Meemaw seen it happen?

  Did she know who the murderer was?

  Chapter 22

  Karen and Ruthann were due to arrive for their fittings any second. I couldn’t delve into a project with Gracie until later, so I brought in the bag of buttons and trims Karen had swept up after Nell’s run-in with the shelf. I gave her three clean mason jars: one for buttons, one for trims and bows, and the third for whatever else she found that didn’t fit in the other jars. “Watch out for any chunks of glass,” I warned, “and put those straight into the trash.”

  She didn’t seem to mind the menial task. She sat cross-legged in the corner, spilling the contents of the plastic grocery bag onto the floor in front of her, clearly just happy to be in the workroom. We chatted about school, sports, boys, Project Runway, and whatever else crossed her mind.

  I pulled out another bolt of muslin and flipped the page of my sketchbook to the bridesmaids’ designs.

  “I go to school with Holly Kincaid,” she said.

  I slipped my glasses off and gave the lenses a quick wipe. “Who?”

  “Holly Kincaid. Your friend who was here, Josie, who’s marrying Nate Kincaid? That’s my friend Holly’s uncle.”

  “Ah, Miriam’s daughter.”

  She nodded.

  “And Miriam is Nate’s sister, and Nate’s marrying Josie, so Josie will be your friend’s aunt.” Small town equaled small world. Six degrees—or fewer—of separation worked for more than just Kevin Bacon.

  “Yeah.”

  “You and Holly are good friends?” I asked.

  “BFFs.”

  I absently loaded spools of thread onto a thread rack I’d hung on the wall as we chatted, wondering if Gracie had any insight into why Miriam had dropped out of the wedding. “I heard that Miriam was supposed to be in the wedding, but now she isn’t.”

  Her smooth brow furrowed. “Yeah, that was weird. First she was the maid of honor. Then she wasn’t. She went a little cuckoo.”

  “Cuckoo how?”

  She dropped a few buttons into the mason jar. “Like now she wants to know exactly where Holly is all the time. Holly lost her cell phone and has to pay for a replacement, but Ms. Kincaid got her a new one and said she can work it off, but Holly has to take pictures of where she’s at and send them to her mom. She won’t let her stay out past ten o’clock anymore. Stuff like that.”

  That all sounded like fairly reasonable mom behavior to me, but if it was out of the ordinary for Miriam, then I wondered what had caused it. Something must have happened to set her off.

  Maybe Josie hadn’t really wanted Miriam in the wedding. She’d said they got along, but did they really?

  If they didn’t get along, had Josie forced Miriam out, opening it up for Nell to step in? If Miriam was as prideful as the other Kincaids, maybe she harbored some bitterness over being forced out of the wedding.

  Could she have taken her anger out on Nell?

  My imagination was getting the better of me. Miriam hadn’t been in Buttons & Bows—or had she? I remembered thinking for a second that I’d seen her before I’d realized it was Mrs. Kincaid. What if it had been Miriam after all? Could she have darted in, hoping to blend in with the crowd, just to find a murder weapon to use on Nell later?

  “Holly doesn’t know why her mom dropped out?”

  She shrugged. “She might.”

  Two things I’d learned about Gracie already: she wasn’t shy and she definitely had opinions. “Do you have a theory?”

  She nodded. “I think maybe she’s jealous.”

  Interesting. Jealousy was a spin-off of the motive I’d already thought of. My reasoning was sketchy since I didn’t really know them, but Gracie would have more insight. “Jealous of Josie?”

  “Yeah, totally,” she said. “You know Mrs. Kincaid? The grandmother, I mean?”

  “I think everybody in town knows Lori Kincaid.”

  “Yeah, well, when Miss Miriam left her husband, Mrs. Kincaid sided with him in the divorce.” She huffed indignantly. “Shouldn’t she have sided with her own daughter? I mean, that’s just wrong.”

  It did sound wrong, but there were always two sides to a story, and this particular version was twice removed, so it definitely needed to be taken with a grain of salt.

  “A mother should be there for her daughter, right?” I nodded, but it was clear she’d already answered that question for herself when she said wistfully, “I think she totally should be. Always. Why have a baby if you’re not going to be there for her? Period and the end.”

  “Mrs. Kincaid wasn’t there for Miriam?”

  Gracie plucked a few more buttons from the floor and dropped them into the jar. “Nope. Not even close.”

  “Or for Holly?”

  She shook her head. “Nope. Holly’s dad wouldn’t move out of their house, so Miss Miriam left instead. Took Holly and moved into”—she made air quotes—“ ‘the castle.’ That’s what we call it because of the moat and bridge and everything.”

  “You nailed it. The Kincaids’ mansion looks like a big ol’ stone castle. Or a fortress.” I perched on the edge of the stool, leaning my elbows on the cutting table, completely sucked in by Gracie’s story. “So what happened?”

  “Well, Mrs. Kincaid, the grandmother, I mean, wouldn’t let them stay at the castle. She actually kicked them out. Can you believe that? Holly said she heard Mrs. Kincaid tell her mom that she couldn’t put her head in the sand and hide. She had to face things head-on. ‘Go back to your husband,’ she told her.”

  I’d kept up with a lot of the town gossip during my years away, but I’d somehow missed the story of Miriam’s messy divorce. “But she must have had a good reason for wanting out of the marriage, right?”

  “Oh, yeah. Holly’s dad’s a jerk. Doesn’t come around, never goes to her soccer games, calls her mom names. Miss Miriam couldn’t get to any of her money. That’s why Miss Miriam asked my dad for help. They stayed with us till he helped them get into an apartment.”

  “It’s a good thing you were there to help,” I said. Glimpsing behind a family’s closed door was like reality television: you couldn’t predict what would happen and there was always a surprise around the corner. The Kincaids were no exception.

  Neither were the Cassidys.

  I couldn’t imagine what Miriam must have felt, but I’d lost the connection to what this story had to do with Miriam’s being jealous. If there was one. “So what’s your theory about the wedding?”

  “Oh! Right.” She dropped a few more buttons into the first jar, added a length of ribbon to the second jar, and a hunk of glass to the bag. “When Mrs. Kincaid found out Holly and her mom moved in with us, she totally wigged out.”

  “But why?”

  “I don’t know, but I think Miss Miriam dropped out of the wedding because she’s jealous that her brother and your friend are in love and that Mrs. Kincaid is so happy about it when she wouldn’t even help her get divorced from Holly’s dad.”

  I had to admit it was a good theory, but it seemed too thin. I came back to why? Questions and answers funneled through my mind.
r />   Why would Lori Kincaid refuse to help her daughter during her divorce?

  One: Gracie’s understanding of the marriage was simplistic, one-sided, and painted Miriam as the victim, but if the husband had been betrayed by Miriam, Mrs. Kincaid’s allegiance might make sense.

  Or two: Appearances were big to the Kincaids and divorce would be a big ol’ black spot. Bullying worked with schoolkids, but it also worked with adults. Mrs. Kincaid may have sided with Miriam’s husband in order to try to coerce Miriam back into the marriage.

  Why wouldn’t Miriam be glad for Nate and Josie? Their happiness had nothing to do with her. But I knew from the fashion world and the cutthroat modeling business that jealousy was ugly and had more to do with a person’s insecurities than anything else. Did the thought of her brother’s picture-perfect wedding highlight her own failed marriage and divorce?

  And three: Why would Lori Kincaid have been so upset about Will Flores stepping in to help his daughter’s friend and her mother?

  Miriam moving in, even briefly, with someone else made it pretty clear to anyone who cared—which meant all of the gossipmongers in Bliss—that there was definitely trouble in Kincaid paradise. And that she’d turned to outsiders instead of her own family.

  Another idea popped into my head. Oh, no. I fiddled with the pincushion, lining the pins up in neat rows, hoping the thought might disappear.

  It didn’t.

  What if the problem was that Will Flores and Miriam weren’t just friends? What if there was something going on between them . . . and it was happening right under poor Mrs. Flores’s nose?

  That would have been bad. A double black spot on the Kincaids’ reputation.

  I suddenly had the unmistakable feeling I was being watched. Gracie was focused on fishing out chunks of glass from the pile in front of her, steadily dropping buttons into the mason jar. There was no sign of Meemaw.

  So why—?

  A loose floorboard creaked in the front room.

  I whipped around, caught a glimpse of a woman, and nearly fell off the stool.