An hour later, they were ready. Gracie’s chestnut hair was a mass of ringlets, she had a single rosette secured with a bobby pin behind her ear, and with her cream-colored dress of handmade rosettes, she looked like a princess straight out of a fairy tale. The only thing missing was the tiara.
Mrs. James had taken Danica to buy blue wedge heels to complement the blue beaded accents of her dress. A light glitter dusted her cheeks and with the bright tangerine bubble dress, she looked like a fairy.
Leslie’s dark hair was pulled back and secured with a sapphire blue headband I’d made from a scrap of her dress fabric. I’d lined her eyes in sapphire, which made them look cornflower blue against her chocolate skin. She’d found strappy metallic sandals at a secondhand store off the square, and with the tiered hem of her dress, she was a vision of iridescent color.
I ushered them out to the porch for a few prepicture pictures, positioning them in front of the red door, a red slatted bench Will had made for me off to their left, Meemaw’s old white rocking chairs to their right. I hurried down the steps, adjusted the focus and aperture on my camera, framed them as best I could, and snapped away.
Before I could check to see if any of them had turned out, the girls were piling into their cars to follow Will to his ranch. It was a caravan of old cars following Will’s pickup truck. “I’ll be along in a minute!” I called. Will stuck his arm out the driver’s window and waved.
Back inside, I cleaned up, changed into a fresh blouse, and quickly uploaded the pictures I’d just taken. Out of the shots, only three looked halfway decent. If this was how it went for three girls, imagine how hard it would be with a much larger group. Thank goodness Madelyn had agreed to go to Will’s and take the photos of the homecoming couples.
I went through them again, deleting the shots that had Leslie blinking, Danica looking off into the distance, all three of the girls frowning, Gracie brushing a wayward strand of hair away from her face. On and on they went, bad shot after bad shot.
I felt a swirl of warm air behind me and spun around. The pile of things Barbara Ann Blake had brought still sat on the table, but they’d been relocated to the opposite side.
“Right, Meemaw, and I’m not giving dressmaking up any time soon for photography,” I said. “I couldn’t even get them to focus on me. Too much distraction with all the passing cars.”
I poised my finger over the delete key, ready to depress it. I stopped. Something was bothering me about the pictures, but I couldn’t pinpoint what it was. The composition? The dresses? I peered more closely, but the girls all looked gorgeous, and I couldn’t find anything amiss with the garments, the shoes, the hair, or the accessories.
An invisible force pressed on my shoulder. “Jussst thinnnnk,” Meemaw said.
Good advice. I’d hoped the murderer would be identified before the dance, but it didn’t look like that was going to happen. I needed time to ponder all the things that were bothering me—and that list was growing long.
I took my camera and ran out the door.
Chapter 29
I passed Clevis Johnson’s ranch, a memory of me wreaking havoc with his weather vane crashing into my head. Some things were better left forgotten. As cars passed by going the opposite direction, I recognized a few of the parents of Gracie’s friends. Then I thought I saw Sally Levon zoom past.
Part of me wanted to turn around and chase her down so she wouldn’t be alone right now. Her heart had been broken, just like Barbara Ann Blake’s and Reba Montgomery’s. But after I passed the car, I wasn’t even positive it had actually been her. Common sense prevailed. After all, she might be guilty as sin. She was definitely a suspect in the murder of Chris Montgomery.
I pulled up to the Flores house. The kids weren’t in the front yard, although there were about eight cars parked along the grassy shoulder. The driveway was long, and there was plenty of room to park there, so I opted for that, pulling up as far as I could.
Cattle fencing blocked off the backyard and acreage. Instead of hiking around until I found a gate or a way to pass through, I headed up the asphalt driveway, along the cement sidewalk leading to the front porch of the ranch house. I let myself in when no one answered in response to my knocking.
Inside, the entry opened up into a big family room. An enormous table sat on the right side of the room. I knew that Will used this for architectural projects. Once he’d built a miniature version of Bliss’s town square, including a few of the peripheral streets like Mockingbird Lane. That model was now housed in the museum at the courthouse on the square.
Right now, the table was piled high with materials for whatever his next project would be. He and I were the same, both passionate and creative. Only our outlets were different. I used garment design and fabric to evoke emotions and to convey ideas, to give people comfort and style, and help them define themselves. He used shape and structure and building elements to do the same things.
The rest of the house was an ode to design. It was comfortable, but minimalistic, with clean lines and simple shapes. Our styles weren’t the same, but they complemented each other. I had a preference for anything old, the history that seeped into objects giving them character and meaning. Will liked to create things that would eventually have history. It was a different perspective and approach, but the end goal was the same.
Large windows lined the back of the room, bringing the outdoors in, the green of the grass reflected in the pale green interior walls. I headed out the back door and to the photo session. The kids were in all their finery. Madelyn was directing the girls, grouping them together first. I saw Shane leaning against the back fence, off to himself. Miss Reba was here, camera in hand, but just like her son, she had isolated herself. Life . . . and death . . . was taking its toll on both of them.
The other moms and a few dads, including Will, also snapped pictures, but Madelyn was clearly in charge. “Time to add in the boys,” she announced, ushering them over and waiting while they positioned themselves next to their dates. Everyone was paired up. “We’re just going as friends,” Danica had said about her date with Tony Franco. “Us, too,” Leslie said about Jim McDaniels, but the glimmer in her eyes told me she was hoping they’d be more than friends by the time the dance was over.
Shane ambled toward the group, sliding into place behind Gracie. “Look happy!” Madelyn said. I scanned the group. They all tried, bless ’em, but the pall of death and fear hung over each one of them, especially Gracie and Shane. Their smiles were halfhearted, at best. I snuck a glance at Miss Reba. She was on her cell phone, her back turned to Shane and his friends.
I went into stealth mode, edging toward her, getting as close as I dared. It didn’t matter. She was doing more listening than talking and I couldn’t hear a thing. Then my cell phone rang, and that was that. My spying was over.
I glanced at the screen, hesitating when I saw Gavin McClaine’s name pop up. Did I really want to talk to my stepbrother right now?
The answer was no, but the smart thing to do was answer in case he had some information to impart. “Hey, Deputy,” I said, trying to sound more upbeat than I felt. Miss Reba, Gracie, and Shane’s dejected attitude was spilling over to me. I’d vowed to myself to get Shane off the hook by tonight so he and Gracie could enjoy the dance. I’d failed.
“Sis.” Gavin’s heavy Southern drawl came through on even the smallest word, stretching the three letters out until the word sounded like two syllables.
“What’s up, Gavin?”
He didn’t beat around the bush. “We have some news. Looks like your boy is in the clear.”
“What?” I said, barely holding back a shriek. Behind me, Miss Reba started sobbing. If Gavin was on the phone with me, I reckoned Hoss must be on the phone with her. “Who?” I asked, but even as the question came out, I knew the answer. “Oh my gosh, it’s Barbara Ann Blake, isn’t it?”
“How’d you know?”
Good question. “A hunch.” She’d been front and center in my mind since her surprise visit to Buttons & Bows.
I lowered my voice, talking loud enough for Gavin to hear, but making sure no one around me could. “She stopped by the shop today. Brought some of the things that had been taken from the Montgomery house during the burglary last month, and it got me thinking. She said she’d found them with her husband’s things, but that made no sense.”
“Not a lick.”
“Right. Because why would he break into his own house, steal things from his own kids, and then hide it at his other house? Unless,” I said, “she was trying to throw us off her trail.”
But then why would she confess? I was stunned.
I looked up as Miss Reba walked past me, making a beeline for Shane. “Thanks for the update, Gavin,” I said. I hung up and tucked the phone back in my bag, following Miss Reba. I wanted to see Shane’s reaction, hopeful that the worry and despondency that he’d worn like a veil since hearing of his dad’s death would lift and float away.
She drew close. As if Shane sensed her, he turned his head toward her, his lips parting. “It’s over,” she said.
He stared, lifting his eyebrows. Gracie had turned, too. “What?” she asked.
“The other wife . . . Barbara Ann Blake,” Miss Reba said, shaking her head as if she still couldn’t believe it. “She just confessed to everything.”
A collective gasp went up from the kids, and the tight group separated, then drew back together in a new configuration, closing in protectively around Shane. One of the guys whooped and hollered. The stunned expression on Gracie’s face slowly melted away, replaced by disbelief and then relief.
“She killed her husband?” Leslie asked.
Danica looked between Miss Reba and me, her hand on her chest. “And Mr. Levon?”
“I just spoke to the sheriff, and he said she confessed to all of it, including the attack on Mr. Levon.”
“So Shane is . . . They know he’s . . . It’s all okay now?” Gracie asked, finally finding the right words.
Miss Reba swiped away the tears that fell, her smile shaky, but in no danger of fading. “He is . . . and it is,” she said. “As okay as it can be.”
This time, there was a tinge of regret in her voice. Her children were still without their father, her husband had still led a second, secret life, and it would take a long time to pick up the pieces, but the hope was there that they’d get through it. A mother’s love for her child was different from her love for her husband, and while I knew the betrayal still cut deep, all that was pushed aside to rejoice in her son being freed from suspicion. She’d hoped beyond hope that her son was innocent, and now she knew that to be true.
Madelyn circled behind me, her camera to her face. She turned the lens, focusing, capturing every moment with the pictures she took.
“I can’t believe she just up and confessed like that,” I said to her a short while later. As many times as I’d considered Mrs. Blake as a suspect, it didn’t sit well that she’d actually done it.
“She messed with her husband’s car?” Madelyn asked.
“They were married for a long time. She must have picked up some of his automotive skills over the years . . .”
“And she clobbered that other man?”
“More like ran him over. Pinned him to the wall in Bubba’s garage,” I said. I was seeing Barbara Ann in a whole new light, and the fact that I’d been alone with her several time sent a shiver down my spine. “Did you see how relieved Miss Reba was?”
Madelyn’s carefully shorn hair, artfully messy, didn’t move one bit when she nodded. The woman had some powerful hairspray. “Like the weight of the world had just fallen off her,” she said.
Exactly what I’d been thinking. Gracie had the same relieved look. Her entire body had relaxed, her shoulders, which had been tense, were now dropped, her jaw was loose, and her hands were no longer fisted. She hugged Shane, burying her face in his shoulder as he lowered his chin to the top of her head.
Madelyn quickly lifted her camera and snapped the picture. It was a moment in time that showed the past falling away and the future spread out before them.
After another few minutes, the kids piled into the limo they’d all chipped in to rent and left for their dinner at Giselle’s off the Square, one of Bliss’s finer restaurants.
“Let’s go sort through this mess,” Madelyn said, holding up her camera.
“Perfect.”
Will came up to us, grinning. I slipped my arm around him, the sides of our bodies pressed together. Just as Miss Reba had wanted Shane free, he wanted Gracie to be happy—no matter what it took. “I never thought I’d be so happy to have a murder solved,” he said.
It was true there was still a lot of sadness, grief, and healing to get through, but for just a moment, we reveled in the fact that Gracie and Shane had a wonderful, stress-free night ahead of them.
“Dinner?” I asked Will and Madelyn.
Will looked toward the back pasture. “You two go ahead. I have to repair the fence while there’s still light,” he said. “I’ll see you later?”
The after-party. I wouldn’t miss it for the world. “I’ll be back here at eleven,” I said, and Madelyn and I headed off to her house to sort the homecoming pictures.
* * *
Madelyn lived in a section of Bliss called Idiot’s Hill. Back when the town was a fraction of its current population, all the homes were situated around the courthouse square. Until, that is, a builder decided to develop an area north of the town’s center. “Only an idiot would buy way out there,” he was told, but he went ahead anyway, sure that his vision was sound. Meemaw had told him it would be a success, after all, and everyone knew Meemaw was never wrong.
Just like in Field of Dreams, he built it and they came, but the area was forever burdened with the name Idiot’s Hill. The people who lived there didn’t mind. They had greenbelts, a pond, and a tight-knit neighborhood with people who watched out for one another.
Madelyn and Billy’s house was a plain brick single-story rancher. They weren’t much for gardening, so the front lawn was more weeds than grass, and the abundance of flowers visible in my yard was absent here.
But Madelyn didn’t mind. “I have enough hobbies and interests,” she told me once. “No time to take up gardening. I just need your mum to come and visit,” she added.
Her home office was a photographer’s dream. It was small, but she had everything she could want or need for her vocation. She had a high-end photo-quality printer on a small table, stacks of paper and replacement ink on the shelves below the printer itself. Four corkboards hung on one wall, prints of some of her recent spiderweb shots, a hummingbird in flight, and a reflection in a bird bath, among others, pinned to them. On the large worn oak desk was a computer with an enormous screen, stackable trays for her paperwork, and a digital frame scrolling through her most recent uploads.
She sat at the desk and went to work, removing the SD card from the camera and plugging it into a gadget attached to the computer via a USB port in the back. I dragged a chair over to sit next to her. I looked around in awe. I was always amazed coming in here. Everywhere I looked I saw evidence of her passion.
“Ready?” she asked.
I scooted the chair forward and pushed my glasses back into place. “Ready.”
She scrolled through the photos, just as I had with the ones I’d taken on my front porch, deleting the ones that were clearly no good, glancing at me for confirmation on the ones she didn’t care for, and pausing on ones we weren’t sure about. Once the collection had been whittled down, she cycled through them again.
My stomach felt tight looking at the pictures. Before the confession, and after the confession. Miss Reba stepping into the mix was a defining moment, and it had changed everything for the group.
; “I can crop them,” she said, demonstrating how she could eliminate the blurred background elements. She chose a picture that focused on Carrie and her date, selecting the section of the photo she wanted to keep. She pressed a button and, voilà, the background disappeared and all that was left was the smiling couple.
Carrie had on a striking green organza dress with long ruffles, spaghetti straps, and rhinestone crystals along the bodice. Netting underneath gave the skirt volume.
“Not sure about that one,” I said. The photo would have been perfect had Carrie been looking at the camera, but her eyes were angled to the side, her expression . . . I couldn’t say exactly what her expression was. The best word was wary, but I had no idea what she’d be wary about.
Madelyn pressed the arrow key and moved to the next picture. This one was of Holly and Libby, each stunning in their homecoming dresses, arms looped around each other like sisters.
“Keeper,” I said, knowing their mothers, Miriam and Sandra, would want copies.
The next several were good as is. She adjusted the exposure on a few, cropped the background out of another several of the couple shots, and then we were on to the group pictures. “Getting a shot where everyone is smiling and looks good is the most challenging aspect,” Madelyn said. She pointed to one of the boys on the screen. “Everyone looks great here, except for this young man. I’ll keep it, though, until we know if we have a better one.”
One by one, we went through them. In each photo, someone blinked or made a strange face or looked away. In most of the early group shots, Shane and Gracie looked tortured. Madelyn kept cycling through the shots. After another few, something changed. The group started to split apart. Bodies turned toward Shane. Madelyn moved through the frames quickly, as if she was operating the camera in sport mode.
She moved backward through the frames. The kids lurched awkwardly. I couldn’t help but laugh. It made the moment when Miss Reba stepped into the frame to announce her news about Mrs. Blake’s confession all the sweeter.
A Killing Notion: A Magical Dressmaking Mystery Page 20