Pleating for Mercy

by Melissa Bourbon

  Why hadn’t I listened more closely?

  “What about Derek?” the sheriff asked.

  “Until today, I hadn’t seen him in years,” I said, adding a silent Thank God. “Of course, I’ve been gone most of that time.”

  “Haven’t seen him lately. Six months, at least,” Will said.

  “And what about George Taylor?”

  “I see him every now and then,” Will said.

  The name was familiar. I racked my brain, miraculously pulling the information from somewhere in my memory bank. Ruthann had mentioned a George Taylor. “I’ve heard the name, but I don’t know him.”

  “You’ve heard the name where?”

  “It’s all secondhand information, Sheriff.” I didn’t want to spread rumors about a man I’d never met.

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” he said.

  “The bridesmaids were talking about him,” I said, when it was clear I had no choice. “One of them said she heard through the grapevine that he’d said he and Nate had”—I made the same air quotes Ruthann had—“fished in the same pond. With Nell,” I added.

  Will scooted his chair closer to the desk. “Do you think George has something to do with this?”

  The sheriff shrugged. “Nell Gellen was pregnant by some mysterious boyfriend. You say she was gonna make an announcement at the rehearsal dinner. The thing is, Nate Kincaid admits he dated Nell in the past. He sat right in that chair,” he said, pointing to Will, “and swore up and down that they’d never had . . .” He looked away for a split second while he said, “. . . relations.” Then he said gruffly, “I don’t have proof one way or another, but I believed him.”

  “But Josie told me you were gunning for Nate. You should have seen her. She was on the verge of a nervous breakdown.”

  The sheriff cocked his head and gave a mocking laugh. “I’m not a fool, Harlow. I didn’t tell them I believed his story.”

  Right. “No, sir, I guess you wouldn’t. What about Nell’s will?”

  “What about it?”

  “I heard she had one. Did you find it?” And if it was never signed, then what?

  “She had one, dated a few months back. No family to speak of,” the sheriff said, “so it should hold up. She bequeathed her fifty percent interest in Seed-n-Bead to Josefina Sandoval.”

  Mixed emotions swirled through me. The inheritance meant another motive for Josie, or a stable future in case things didn’t work out with Nate. “Does she know?”

  He flipped his wrist to look at his watch. “She will in about half an hour.”

  “What about the murder, Sheriff?” Will asked.

  “Nate Kincaid,” he said flatly, “has an alibi.”

  Everything screeched to a halt. “He does?”

  The sheriff nodded. “He was on a flight out of DFW at six thirty that night and got back just before nine the next morning. He couldn’t have killed Nell. He was in the middle of something big the day she was killed.” He puckered his thin lips and whistled, low and prolonged, giving Will and me both pointed looks.

  Will leaned forward. “No kidding. He’s a whistle-blower?”

  “Made a few phone calls,” McClaine said. “Definitely looks that way.”

  I followed the unraveling thread of what they were saying. “How can he be an informant for something? Wait—you mean he’s blowing the whistle on his own family’s company? About what?”

  “Don’t know, don’t care,” the sheriff said. “It’ll come out. Eventually. But it means he’s no longer a suspect.”

  My mind reeled. So someone in the Kincaid family was doing something illegal and didn’t know Nate was about to blow the whistle. It meant the wedding could go on, but Josie was walking into a mess of trouble with that family. Not to mention that someone was still getting away with murder.

  Chapter 45

  I’d spent the remaining days before the wedding putting the final touches on the wedding party’s dresses. I attached another hundred pearls to Josie’s gown. Doublechecked the stitching on Ruthann’s zipper. Measured and remeasured from the waistline of Karen’s dress to the hem. Slip-stitched the hem of Miriam’s frock. Pressed Holly’s dress.

  There was nothing left to do beside the final fittings. At last the day before the wedding had arrived. This was it. The bridal party would be here in minutes. I couldn’t believe I had gotten all the dresses done in time. My hands trembled from exhaustion; would I even be able to hold a needle?

  I closed my eyes and let my mind wander. One by one, images of the bridal party popped into my head, all perfectly turned out in the garments I’d created. I heaved a relieved sigh. I was becoming more and more sure that being able to imagine and design the perfect dress for someone was my charm. Seeing each of them in my head released the kinks in my nerves.

  But one thought zinged in and out of my mind. If I couldn’t envision a person’s perfect clothing—like I hadn’t been able to with Nell—did that mean that person was destined to die? I squeezed my eyes shut to force the idea into a back compartment of my mind. I didn’t want that kind of information about people.

  I fielded a few phone calls while waiting for the wedding party to arrive, jotting down the names of people who wanted to come in for custom garment fittings, another bride in search of the perfect wedding dress, and a few folks who needed alterations to their polyester clothing. I feared the alterations might remain the bread and butter of my business for a while, although things were picking up. I’d noted all the dates and times in my lavender, button-adorned, fabric-covered appointment book. I wasn’t booked solid by any stretch of the imagination, but I wouldn’t be pleading for mercy with the creditors, either.

  The phone rang again just as the bells on the front door jingled. Gracie came in, followed by Mama. Even Nana came to help, though she bounded through the kitchen door, as usual. The troops were here.

  “Harlow?”

  Mrs. Zinnia James’s voice echoed in my ear. “Oh, yes, ma’am, I’m here!” I pointed, directing Mama, Nana, and Gracie to the three bridesmaid dresses. My chest swelled with pride. If Maximilian could see me now . . .

  “Harlow,” Mrs. James snapped.

  “Yes, ma’am. Here.” I turned my back on the workroom. “What can I do for you?”

  “Two things, my dear. First, I want to make appointments for a new dress for that event I mentioned to you and for my granddaughter’s fitting for her pageant dress.”

  We set a date for the following week and I jotted it down in my book. “What else, Mrs. James?”

  “A fashion show.”

  “A fashion show?”

  “A fashion show. At Christmas.”

  It felt like we were playing an obscure guessing game, but I kept at it. “A fashion show for teenagers, then?”

  “Possibly. For women, too. A big event. Your designs. A fund-raiser for the library. Don’t say anything yet. Just let the idea percolate for a while. We can talk more about it after the Sandoval-Kincaid wedding is over. Of course there’s the pageant in July. That will be first. Then the fashion show during the holidays. I’ll be keeping you busy, Harlow.”

  And then she was gone and I was left holding the phone, visions of black and white and pink dresses floating in my mind. Mrs. Zinnia James, it seemed, was my personal event coordinator, which, as far as I could tell, would be a very good thing for business.

  The arrival of the bridal party snapped me out of the fashion show that was going on in my head. Karen and Ruthann sidled in together. Miriam arrived a few minutes later, looking like she was being dragged over the threshold by her mother. Josie straggled in last, her dark hair flat and in need of a wash, her mascara smeared under her lower lashes, and dark circles confirming my suspicion that the bride wasn’t sleeping well.

  As the bridesmaids slipped into their dresses, I pulled her aside, grateful that I could still see her as a bride in my mind, perfectly coiffed and ready to walk down the aisle in the dress I’d made for her. “Are you okay?” I whispered.
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br />   She brushed her stringy hair away from her face, her eyes looking a little wild, like a tiger who wanted out of her cage. “Nell left the bead shop to me,” she blurted out. “Why would she do that?” She stared at me as if I had a crystal ball that could see right into the past.

  “You were friends. Almost family,” I said. It was the best I could do, but I also thought it was the truth. Nell had chosen her family, and she’d chosen Josie. It was a small consolation that she’d felt that kinship before she died.

  It took a few minutes for Josie to regroup, but she did, throwing her shoulders back, mustering a smile, and stripping out of her clothes behind the changing screen. It took ten minutes for her to wiggle into her Spanx and then, with my help, into her gown, but when she emerged from behind the screen, the room fell silent.

  Ruthann, floating like an ethereal faerie in her pale green chiffon, fluttered her hands as she looked at Josie. Karen, looking curvy and feminine, nearly swooned. Even Miriam, whose dress was the simplest design, yet looked supremely elegant on her trim figure, smiled.

  It was Lori Kincaid, the soon-to-be mother-in-law, who finally spoke. “Josie,” she said, “you look lovely.”

  And she did. The bride was a vision. The French Diamond ivory silk was perfect against her warm olive skin, the hand-pleated bodice accented her curves in just the right manner, the flowing train made it look as if she walked on clouds, and the painstakingly applied beads caught the light and shimmered like diamonds.

  Her eyes glistened as she looked in the oval mirror, her hands lifting to cover her mouth. “Oh, Harlow, you did it! Loretta Mae said you could do it, and you did. It’s beautiful.” She looked renewed, as if a light suddenly shone from inside her. “I feel like . . . like . . . like anything is possible.”

  Mama’s hand squeezed my shoulder, and Gracie squeezed my hand. My own eyes pricked. From the looks on the bridesmaids’ faces, they were experiencing the same thing.

  Chapter 46

  Several hours later, the fittings were over and all the dresses, with the exception of Miriam’s and Holly’s, which still needed tailoring, had been pressed and delivered. I still had a long night ahead of me, but I took a break, sipping lemonade with Mama and Nana at Meemaw’s kitchen table. “My charm,” I announced, my nerves zinging like pinballs through my body. “My charm is my sewing. It’s being able to picture just what a person needs—or wants—and making it a reality.”

  Mama nodded sagely. “I thought as much.”

  I looked past her at the fluttering curtains above the kitchen sink and smiled. Meemaw. “You did?”

  “Loretta Mae dropped enough hints over the years,” Nana said. “Saying you were gifted with your hands and that you’d stitch people’s dreams together one day. The thing about the charms is that you have to discover them for yourself.”

  “Looks like all those girls’ dreams are coming true, thanks to you,” Mama said.

  She was right. Karen wanted to sparkle and have her husband notice her. I didn’t know for certain that he would, but if he didn’t, he was a fool. Ruthann wanted to feel beautiful on the inside, as well as on the outside. The confidence she exuded in the dress told me she did. Miriam wanted peace, I thought, and from the look on her face, she’d get there soon. As soon as I finished her dress.

  And Josie . . .

  “I thought Josie was going to cry when she walked in here,” Mama said, “but in that dress, she looked like a princess.”

  The kitchen pipes moaned and it almost sounded as if they were saying the word “happy.” Satisfaction and pride filled me. “Happy,” I said, confirming Meemaw’s message.

  “Yes,” Mama said. “She looked happy.”

  “You did good, Harlow,” Nana said. “And let me tell you, stitching people’s dreams together is a whole lot better a charm than your mama’s or mine. Goat-whisperer. Pshaw,” she spat out. “That was Butch’s joke, if you ask me.”

  Mama and I laughed. Nana loved her goats more than life itself. She was all piss and vinegar. And I was floating on air. For the first time since I’d been back home in Bliss, I, too, felt like anything was possible.

  Chapter 47

  By eleven o’clock the day of the wedding, I fully understood an old Texas saying Meemaw used to spout off: I felt older than two trees. It was just three hours until the ceremony. By the time it was over, I was sure I’d feel older than three trees. I’d stayed up late, adapting one of my off-the-rack Maximilian dresses for Holly and it had fit her perfectly. Only Miriam’s still wasn’t quite done.

  I had had plenty of time while I sewed to think about the new information the sheriff had revealed. The father of Nell’s baby still seemed the most logical choice as the killer. He probably had the most to lose. But other than Nate, there were no potential daddies who’d been in Buttons & Bows, and the sheriff thought one of the people in my shop that day had stolen cording that had been used to strangle Nell. Problem with that was I still hadn’t found hide nor hair of a single piece of cording, braiding, or any other trim that would make that odd pattern on Nell’s neck.

  I’d been so sure Nate was guilty that I hadn’t given much thought to any other possibilities, not really, but now... “You can let it go,” Will had said when he doctored my cuts a second time.

  I’d pushed my glasses to the top of my head and rubbed my eyes. “But what if—”

  “No what ifs. It doesn’t matter what Nate’s up to with the company. He didn’t have anything to do with Nell’s murder. He’s in the clear. You just need to finish the dresses. You didn’t promise Josie anything else.”

  I realized he was right, of course, but sitting on the front porch with a piece of leftover fried chicken, courtesy of Nana, and a glass of ice-cold lemonade, I couldn’t stop worrying that Josie was stepping into a hornet’s nest and if she wasn’t careful, she was going to get stung, but bad.

  I looked at my watch. 11:15. Two hours, forty-five minutes. Finally, the gate in the arbor creaked open and Miriam trudged through, the glimpse of peace she’d shown yesterday all but gone. Now she looked as though the weight of the world was on her shoulders. Dark circles and the Dallas Cowboys ball cap on her head spoke loud and clear. She’d gotten less sleep than I had, not a good look for the maid of honor of the biggest social event Hood County had seen in a dozen years.

  The latch reengaged with a loud click. “Hey,” I called, waving the chicken leg I’d just taken a bite of.

  “Hi,” she said absently, glancing at the spot amid the bluebonnets where Nell had been found.

  “Isn’t it hard looking at the yard, knowing someone died right there?” she asked as she came up the porch steps. “Do you think you’ll ever be able to look at it the same way?”

  I’d asked myself that very question a hundred times since that night. “Hard” didn’t even begin to describe the spectrum of emotions I had experienced. “No, I don’t think I will,” I said, putting the chicken down, my appetite gone.

  She needed to get into her dress, anyway. I still had a few things to finish, but until she tried it on, I couldn’t wrap it up.

  Just as I started to stand up, she sat in the chair next to me. “We should get started,” I said, but then I lowered myself back down.

  She rocked slowly, to and fro, to and fro, lost in her thoughts. “I used to think death was about the person dying and how they felt,” she said after a stretch of silence.

  I settled against the back of the chair and fell into rhythm with her. “And now?”

  “Now I think it’s more about the people left behind. I think if you believe there’s something more than what’s here, the moment death comes, you’ll be at peace. But it’s the rest of us, the ones left behind who have to deal with our grief . . . That’s the hard part. Will I ever be able to forget her?”

  What an odd question. I hoped I made a big enough mark on the world and the people in my life that they’d take joy in remembering me. “Do you want to forget her?”

  Her only answer for a
few seconds was the creaking of her chair. “No.”

  “The fact that she was in our lives means that she had an impact on us. Even on me, and I barely knew her.” Her gaze stayed glued to the thatch of bluebonnets. “I’m going to put a fountain there,” I said. “In memory of Nell.”

  She nodded, fighting the tears glistening in her eyes. “That’ll . . . that’ll be real nice,” she said.

  Will had told me to leave it alone, but one thing had been bothering me since meeting with the sheriff. I hadn’t been able to get her alone during the final bridesmaid fitting, but now was my chance. “Miriam, when did your dad get back home?”

  She wiped away a rogue tear with the back of her hand and considered my question. “Friday.”

  “That’s what I thought, but I heard your mom say no one was allowed to drive his car except him. But didn’t y’all come here in the Lincoln?”

  She grimaced. “My mother’s not allowed to drive his car,” she said, “and neither am I. But the boys are.”

  Ah, the male chauvinist good-ol’-boy thing. “So Nate was—”

  “No,” she interrupted, shaking her head. “Nate had his own car. He had some meeting to go to. Derek drove us.”

  She started rocking again. “He and my dad both go back and forth. Home for a month, then back to the Ivory Coast or wherever it is they go. Derek’s been home for four or five weeks now—”

  He has?

  “—and it’s been a nightmare. Ever since—” She stopped and gnawed at the corner of her fingernail and snuck a glance at me. “All they do is fight. They can’t hardly stand to be in the same room with each other.”

  I stopped rocking, trying to sort everything out. “Miriam, you just said Derek drove ‘us.’ Were you there? Did you come into my shop that day?”

  “Only for a minute. I waited in the car.”