Pleating for Mercy

by Melissa Bourbon

  “I can see it in your eyes. After everything, you think I killed her, don’t you?” He moved closer.

  Criminy. My whole body trembled. Yes. “N-no.”

  “I didn’t. Nell and I went out on a few dates. It was a long time ago. She was Josie’s friend, that’s it. I had no reason to kill her.”

  I clutched the strap of my purse. Except the forty-thousand-dollar engagement ring she stole. Oh, yeah, and the pregnancy. “Where were you that night? Why weren’t you with Josie?” All he had to do was give his alibi and he’d be in the clear.

  His expression hardened, the cleft in his chin growing more pronounced. “I was helping someone.”

  I threw my hands up, exasperated. “Do you know how much Josie loves you? How much she wants to believe you? She asked me to help prove you’re innocent, Nate. You can’t just say you were helping someone. Where were you?”

  I didn’t really think he would just cough up his alibi, but he never had a chance. Josie, Karen, and Ruthann came outside, and a second later Mr. and Mrs. Kincaid turned the corner and walked briskly toward us. Miriam was next to her mother, and next to her was . . . Derek?

  Taking a step back, I tripped on an uneven piece of cement. My foot twisted under me. I fell, dropping my purse, my knee scraping against the edge of the curb. A sharp stab of pain shot from my knee to my gut, but I swallowed the angry sting the second I saw the contents of my purse scattered all around me.

  All at once, everyone rushed forward.

  Seven people were suddenly crouched around, gathering up my belongings. From the corner of my eye, I saw the little blue velvet bag in the street. Still on my knees, I lunged, snatching up the jewelry bag just as Mr. Kincaid and Derek both reached for it. The side of my face collided with Derek’s shoulder, knocking my glasses out of place.

  Derek mumbled, “You okay, Harlow?”

  Some sleuth I was. If an encounter with an old boyfriend, which was really overstating what Derek and I had had, sent me reeling, what would a confrontation with a killer do to me? “Yup. Fine,” I said. With the bag enclosed in my fist, I braced my knuckles against the cement to push myself up. A hand clasped my elbow, finishing the job. “This is becoming a habit.”

  Will. He always seemed to be right there when I needed him. Coincidence? I straightened my glasses and tried not to look at the blood I could feel dripping down my shin.

  Mrs. Kincaid’s hand fluttered to her neck. “Bless your heart, Harlow. What in heaven’s name got into you?”

  I couldn’t say it was the shock of seeing all the Kincaid children together again for the first time in seventeen years, or that they’d almost discovered Josie’s first engagement ring in my possession. I wanted to kick myself for bringing it with me to the funeral. In hindsight, it probably would have been safer tucked away at home.

  I went for distraction, blurting out the first thing that popped into my head. “I guess I was just lost in my own thoughts. I was just talking to Will, and then I saw you, and I suddenly remembered you mentioning Miriam’s old sewing machine.” I rambled on. “Will’s daughter is working for me now and I thought it would be perfect for her.”

  “Oh, dear,” she said, frowning. “Miriam took it to the church for the rummage sale—”

  “Not yet, I didn’t. It’s still in my car,” Miriam said.

  “You haven’t . . . It is?” Mrs. Kincaid looked like she couldn’t believe her daughter’s irresponsibility. How dare she not deliver the used goods to the rummage sale in a timely manner. Mrs. Abernathy would be so disappointed.

  “Of course Gracie can have it,” Miriam said to Will. “I’ll drop it off when I have a chance.”

  Will smiled. “That’s great. Gracie’ll love it. Really, thank you.”

  Mrs. Kincaid forced a smile, then looked at my leg. “That’s a nasty cut,” she said to me. “You’d best go on inside and get that fixed up.”

  “Good idea.” I took a step, wincing as I tried to straighten my knee. “Mmmm,” I moaned, my eyes stinging.

  “There’s bandages in the bathroom,” Josie said. “I’ll help you—”

  “It’s okay.” Will slid his arm around me and I leaned against him. “I got her.”

  I looked at Derek. A little smile played on his lips, his attention moving from my leg to the people gathered around me. I quickly looked away, trying to ignore the anxiety gathering inside me.

  I noticed Josie leaning into Nate before Will propelled me toward the bead shop and I lost sight of them. Their bodies seemed perfectly molded to each other. Doubt slithered through me. What if all the facts I’d ticked off were just coincidence? What if Nate had had nothing to do with Nell’s death, just as he claimed? I wanted so much for him to be telling the truth. I closed my eyes for a split second and conjured up an image of Josie’s wedding gown—I could still picture it clearly. Surely that was a good sign.

  Karen handed Will my purse, and he guided me as I hobbled back into Seed-n-Bead. Mama dropped the broom she’d been using when she saw us. “What happened?”

  I waved her away with my free hand. “I just tripped. It’s n-nothing.”

  “Josie said there’s first-aid stuff in the bathroom. I got it,” he said over his shoulder.

  I heard Mama pick up the broom and start sweeping again, but louder than that was the heat of her gaze on my back and the pressure of Will’s hand on my side, both of which seemed to say, You’re in over your head, Harlow Jane.

  I wondered if she was right.

  Chapter 43

  Fifteen years of being a single dad to Gracie had given Will an unexpected bedside manner. He ran the water until it was warm, squeezed a dollop of amber liquid soap on a paper towel, and gently cleansed my wounds. “You did a pretty good number on this shin,” he commented.

  “When I do something, I do it all the way.”

  His lips quirked into a smile, little crinkles appearing around his eyes. “Is that right?”

  I could feel the heat of embarrassment creep up my neck. I didn’t dare look in the mirror to see how rosy my cheeks were. “Which is why,” I continued boldly, “I’m trying to figure out who killed Nell. I promised Josie—”

  “Josie shouldn’t have asked you to get involved, Harlow.”

  My breath hiccuped. He hadn’t used my first name very often and it sounded foreign coming from his lips.

  “But she did,” I said.

  He was broodingly silent for a long minute. Finally he said, “Nell was murdered. This isn’t a game.”

  He didn’t have to remind me of that.

  After another minute of him dabbing and me wincing, he rooted through the one cupboard in the small bathroom until he found a brown bottle of hydrogen peroxide.

  “Here.” I grabbed a cocktail napkin from a little pile on the counter and held it out to him, but he waved it away, his hand emerging from the cupboard with an old plastic bag filled with white fluff.

  He doused a cluster of cottonballs with the liquid, pausing before he touched it to my skin. “This might sting a little.”

  “No more than it already does.” I was all talk. The second the medicine hit my raw skin, I yelped, grabbing his shoulder, crumpling the napkin in my hand, keeping it at the ready in case I burst out in tears.

  He grimaced as he pried my fingers loose. “Maybe just a little more.”

  “Maybe,” I admitted.

  He blew on it, cooling the pain, then crisscrossed five bandages from a small box he found, strategically placing them to keep as much of the abrasions covered as possible. “We should change these to some gauze squares when you get home.”

  He rolled up the bag of cottonballs and tucked it back into the cupboard. After another weighty pause, he broke the silence. “You didn’t just trip out there. What spooked you?”

  Taking off my glasses, I cleaned the lenses, then tossed the napkin in the trash. Peering up at him through my lashes, I said softly, “My past.”

  His eyes narrowed, but he seemed to understand that it was b
etter left alone.

  “How do I know if I can trust you?” I asked.

  He cupped his chin, rubbing his fingers over the goatee trimmed close to his jawline. “How do you know you can’t?” he asked, looking back at me.

  “Because I don’t really know you.”

  “I trust you with my daughter.” He looked dead serious.

  “And I trust you with Meemaw’s old furniture and pipes.”

  He gave a dismissive, one-note laugh. “Not quite the same thing, Cassidy.”

  I gave a relieved sigh. He was back to calling me Cassidy. “No, I guess it isn’t,” I conceded.

  A flurry of thoughts cascaded through my mind. I had no reason not to trust Will Flores. I definitely felt a kindred spirit in Gracie, and I was back in Bliss to stay, so I might as well start trying to connect with people.

  This wasn’t Lower Manhattan where people looked straight ahead as they plowed through the crowded city, avoiding contact with strangers. This was small-town Texas where men tipped their cowboy hats, said, “Howdy do,” and met at Johnny Joe’s for coffee and doughnuts every Wednesday. Women moved in groups, spending mornings at their kids’ schools adorned in their sequined spirit wear, hightailing it to a Carol Anderson by Invitation fashion show at a local coffeehouse, then heading off to Bible study. I was straddling a line between two worlds, but I needed to edge my way back over to the Bliss side.

  Meemaw’s voice sounded loud and clear in my head. I wouldn’t mislead you, Harlow. Leap fearlessly.

  Leap fearlessly. It was one of her favorite sayings. “If you don’t take a risk, you’ll never realize the potential reward,” she explained when I was little. I’d used the same line on her when she questioned why I was leaving Bliss.

  “You’re not leaping,” she said. “You’re running.” I still didn’t understand how she knew the difference when I couldn’t even comprehend it myself.

  “Harlow?” He crouched down in front of me and took my fisted hands in his. “Are you okay?”

  His dark eyes weren’t quite as dark close up, or maybe he’d just let his guard down for a moment and let the light shine through. They glowed with little flecks of amber like they were lit from behind. The eyes are the window to the soul, Meemaw always said. Looking at Will, I knew it was true. My great-grandmother had already discovered what I was just now seeing—he was a man so locked up and protective of himself and his daughter that he didn’t let anyone inside. But there were cracks in the surface if only someone could work her way into them.

  I had a sudden vision of myself hunched over my sewing machine, working on some mysterious garment. I couldn’t see what it was, but I knew it was for Will and that making it for him would somehow allow him to let me in.

  “Harlow.” He snapped his fingers in front of my face.

  I blinked, jerking out of my thoughts. “Sorry.”

  “Where were you?”

  “Do you wear plaid?” I asked in response, though I had no idea where the question came from.

  “Do I wear plaid?” he repeated, like he had to really think about it.

  “Because I think you’d look good in plaid.” Actually I knew he would.

  He shook his head, looking baffled. “Hmm. I’ll give that some thought.” He held my wrist, running his thumb over the bump in the velvet bag in my hand. “You’re walking around with a diamond that’s probably worth more than Keith’s Lincoln. That’s not a particularly good decision.”

  “Yeah, I figured that out, but I didn’t want to leave it alone.”

  He nodded like maybe he understood my thinking. “What’s going on? Spill it, Cassidy.”

  Leap fearlessly. And so I did.

  Chapter 44

  Will leaned against the bathroom wall, never taking his eyes off me. “So you really think Nate Kincaid might have killed her?”

  I couldn’t answer that directly. With a mobster lawyer in the mix, I wondered if Nate would get his hands dirty, or if he’d have someone else do his dirty work. “What if she stole something of his—could he have, you know, taken care of it? Of her?”

  He nodded toward the bag in my hand. “You’re talking about the ring?”

  “Like you said, it’s worth a lot of money. Did you see the size of that diamond?”

  “If it’s even real,” he said. “Fakes look pretty good these days.”

  Mirror, mirror, on the wall . . . The slide show image of Miriam and Nell holding a mirror flashed behind my eyes. A chill crawled up my spine. “The mirror.”

  “What mirror?”

  “The day after the murder, Thelma Louise got loose, remember?”

  “The goat.”

  “I found that little hand mirror and it was all scratched up. Were you at the funeral?”

  He nodded, and I suddenly knew the stare I’d felt in the church had been his.

  “That mirror was in one of the slide show pictures.”

  He didn’t look convinced. “You sure it was the same?”

  “Beaded edging and ribbons? Absolutely. Nell would have needed to know if that diamond was real before she tried to sell it, right? Diamonds cut glass. She used a mirror to test it.”

  “She could have damaged the diamond,” he said, as if that shot down my theory.

  “Maybe, but she was probably willing to risk it. She had to know what she was dealing with, a thousand-dollar cubic zirconia or a forty-thousand-dollar diamond.”

  “So she tested it a hundred times? That mirror was completely scratched up.”

  Once would have been enough, so I didn’t have an answer to that.

  “So you think Nate killed her because she stole the ring?”

  “I think it’s a pretty good motive, only she hid the ring so he never got it back.”

  “You’re assuming they were having an affair,” he said. “That would be the only way she’d have had opportunity.”

  Yep. That was the one major unknown in my theory. If Nate and Nell weren’t seeing each other, then I was back to square one.

  An hour later, the ring was back inside the navy velvet bag, the bag was wrapped in a napkin, and Will and I were sitting across from the sheriff. Sitting there with him, I could see why Mama might fall for him, but it still rankled me that he was keeping their relationship under wraps.

  He rested his elbows on the arms of his chair, steepling his fingers under his chin. “You givin’ up dressmakin’ in favor of detectin’?” he asked me when I’d finished ticking off what I’d discovered about Nell and her death.

  “No,” I said. “You giving up bachelorhood to make an honest woman of my mother?” I had to clench my fingers over the edge of the chair arms to stop myself from slapping a hand over my mouth. I couldn’t believe I’d said that aloud.

  I knew I’d crossed a line, but now it was out there, good or bad, and I was on the edge of my seat wondering how the sheriff would respond.

  “Remind me never to get on your bad side,” Will murmured under his breath to me.

  The sheriff’s leathery face was usually hard to read, but not this time. He looked shaken up, like he’d fallen off the bull, but he recovered soon enough. “Young lady,” he chastised, “you best get your facts straight before you go sayin’ stuff like that. I’d climb to the top of the water tower—you know a little somethin’ about that, don’tcha?—and tell the whole county how I feel about your mama, but she won’t have none of it.” He leaned forward, looking me square in the eyes. “I mean to marry that woman, Harlow, mark my words. Hell, I gave her a ring. Asked her a hundred times already. What does she do? Wears it on her right hand and says she needs time. I’ll give Tessa all the time in the world, but it’s not me keepin’ a lid on things.”

  You could have knocked me over with a feather. Mama was the one keeping their relationship under wraps? “That’s an engagement ring you gave her?” How could she have made light of it? She’d been holding out for true love ever since my father left her alone with Red and me. Why would she hold back with the sheriff?


  He nodded, giving a wan smile. “You go on and ask her when she’s gonna make an honest man outta me, why don’tcha.”

  That conversation would take some planning, but I said, “Yes, sir, I’ll do that,” all the while holding my breath, worried he’d kick me out of his office.

  “Since I have you here,” he said, “I wanna show you somethin’.” He slid a sheet of paper across the desk to me. “Take a look.”

  He sat back, bending his leg to rest his right ankle on his left knee. Hoss McClaine wasn’t just any old cowboy. He was the sheriff, and he had a job to do. He’d let my rash judgment of him slide and had gotten back to the murder at hand. Just like that, I switched sides. What in the world was Mama doing holding out on a good man like this? I knew it would take some work, but one way or another, I’d get her to see the light.

  I picked up the paper and quickly scanned the handwritten list, going through it more slowly the second time around.

  Nell Gellen

  Josie Sandoval

  Ruthann McDaniels

  Karen Mitchell

  Lori Kincaid

  Miriam Kincaid

  Nate Kincaid

  Keith Kincaid

  Zinnia James

  Wanita Lemure

  Helen Abernathy

  Dulce Sandoval

  Maria Garcia

  I slid the list back to him. “Assuming Wanita Lemure and Helen Abernathy were the ladies with Zinnia James, it’s everyone who was in Buttons and Bows the day Nell was killed. Except for Miriam and Keith Kincaid.”

  “Keith Kincaid didn’t come in the shop?”

  “He was still out of the country, as far as I know.”

  “He got in right before the foundation gala,” Will said. “I was just getting there myself when he pulled up. Helped him carry a suitcase in.”

  The sheriff steepled his fingers again, the creases on his forehead deepening as he thought. “That’s what he said, but he took a private plane and I can’t get verification that he was on the flight he says he was on.”

  The scene from my shop played like a movie in my head. Lori Kincaid had stopped in the doorway as she came in, waving at someone in the Lincoln Town Car. What had Mrs. Kincaid said about their cars? No one could drive the Lincoln except . . . ?