A Fitting End: A Magical Dressmaking Mystery

by Melissa Bourbon

  She hesitated for a moment, taking hold of the iron bars, looking like she wanted to rattle them, demanding her release. Her gaze bore into mine, the blue of her eyes deepening until it was the color of the ocean. “Eleanor Mcafferty.”

  My mind swam as I tried to unravel all the threads knotted up in my mind. “So you, Mrs. Mcafferty, and my grandmother were Margarets together?”

  She nodded, her knuckles turning white from her tightening grip on the bars.

  “And Mrs. Mcafferty wore the green dress?”

  “Yes. It was lovely on her, too. I’ll never forget the day we tried them all on. Ellie’s was the only one that was authentic. A bit of their family history, as it turns out. I could tell your grandmother wanted the green one instead of the one Trudy and Fern Lafayette had made for her, but Loretta Mae wouldn’t hear it. She said that each dress had a history, and that it belonged to a particular person. The yellow one was made especially for Coleta, and it would carry her history.”

  Except my mother and I had never been Margarets so the history had been trapped in the seams of the gown forever.

  “I knew the blue one was mine. Trudy and Fern made it just for me.”

  My pulse ratcheted up. Dressmaking had a way of doing that to me. “Where did the green gown come from?” I asked, my head fuzzy, my thoughts disjointed.

  “Loretta Mae told us that Etta Place wore it. Ellie fell in love with it the moment she saw it. She tried it on and your great-grandmother took one look at her and said things were as they should be; it belonged to her. That irked your grandmother, Coleta, to no end. She loved that dress.”

  Was that part of why Meemaw tried to keep the dresses from me? Did she not want to dredge up old memories for Nana?

  I believed exactly what Meemaw believed: that every piece of clothing made for a person carries history in every stitch and seam. What did a tear and ripped threads mean to that history? Was it a metaphor for a damaged life? “What happened that night?” I asked. “Why is the green dress torn?”

  Instead of answering, she said softly, “We’re all the same underneath, you know.” She pointed her manicured finger to herself, then to me. “We’re not so different, you and I.”

  I felt myself go blue in the face trying to get Mrs. James to spill what she knew, but the woman was as stubborn as a mule. “You need to ask your grandmother, Harlow. It’s her story to tell, not mine.”

  “She doesn’t want to talk about it,” I said.

  She wouldn’t budge, and finally I gave up.

  As I gathered up the swatches, I tried to understand what she and her family were going through. Mrs. James’s daughter Sandra had looked worse than her mother did, as if she’d suffered a one-two punch. Having your mother in jail had to be one of the worst things a person could experience. Only having it be your child would be worse.

  The thoughts triggered a chain reaction of ideas in my mind. The argument between Mrs. James and Macon Vance that day at the club. Meeting Sandra and Libby, then meeting Steven Allen, Libby’s father. Their images flashed like scenes from a movie. Libby didn’t look like Steven, with his pointed nose.

  I pictured the faintest smile on Libby’s face and the tiny dimple that formed. Just like the picture in the newspaper of Macon Vance…

  Oh no. Had he putted a few rounds with Sandra Allen?

  “Harlow?” Mrs. James said, her eyes narrowing as she peered at me through the bars of her cell.

  A snippet of something else Mrs. James had said to the golf pro the day they’d argued surfaced in my memory. It is not your daughter coming out. I suddenly understood what she’d been saying. He may have fathered a child, but he hadn’t raised her.

  As I stood up on shaky legs, a few more threads of the mystery unraveled. I moved toward the bars, stringing my tote bag over my forearm, then gripped the bars, my skin suddenly clammy, my head dizzy as I tried to figure out what this meant. I studied her.

  Mrs. James looked at my face and staggered back, collapsing on the prison cot, and I knew.

  “It’s Libby, isn’t it?” I finally said, unraveling the thread that made the most sense. “Macon Vance was Libby’s father.”

  Chapter 22

  “Did he have a blood test done? Did he get a sample of Libby’s DNA?” Josie asked, sounding like a detective. She leaned back on the couch, a glass of sweet tea in one hand, my lookbook in her lap, staring at me.

  I sat on the settee, the green silk gown Eleanor Mcafferty had worn as a Margaret—the same dress her granddaughter would wear in less than a week’s time—draped over my lap. I pushed the fine size 9 needle through the silk fabric, carefully repairing the torn armhole seam. If only I could absorb the history of the dress by holding it, but my charm didn’t let me do that. “He told Mrs. James that he did but she said she never saw the proof.”

  Josie looked thoughtful as she sipped her tea. “So let me get this straight. Sixteen years ago, Sandra James had a fling with Macon Vance. She got pregnant, but Macon had already moved on. She ended up marrying Steven Allen, who’s raised Libby as his own.”

  “Right.” I tied a knot, snipped the thread, and began repairing a different area of the tear. “According to Mrs. James, Sandra never told anyone the truth, least of all Macon.”

  “So how did he find out? When did he find out?”

  The questions launched a whole new set of concerns in my mind. My pulse throbbed in my temples. Could Sandra have killed Macon to keep her secret? Could she be filled with guilt over the fact that her mother was taking the fall for her crime? “Mrs. James doesn’t know. He came to her about a month ago, she said, claiming to be Libby’s biological father.”

  “Blackmail?”

  I pointed my needle at her. “Yes, that’s what I was thinking, too. It wouldn’t look good for the married daughter of a conservative Texas senator to have a child by some other man, right?”

  “So did Mrs. James pay him off?”

  Before Mrs. James had been able to tell me anything more, Deputy McClaine had shut down the visit, unceremoniously ushering me out of the jailhouse. I’d spent the night tossing and turning, trying to forget that I’d overheard her tell Macon Vance that he’d regret it if he didn’t leave, and wondering if I could still believe she didn’t kill him, alibi or no. Did whatever history they had together mean Nana might lie for Zinnia James? “Remember that day at the club? Mrs. James told him their business was done. What if she was talking about blackmail? What if she did pay him off, but he was coming around wanting more?”

  I finished the armhole repair, tied off the thread, and jabbed the needle into the pincushion on the coffee table.

  “She didn’t say anything else?”

  I’d replayed the conversation in the jailhouse over and over, but nothing else Mrs. James had said seemed relevant. Without warning, the pages of the lookbook in Josie’s lap rustled, gently at first, then with vigor. “What the…” Josie pushed the book off her lap. It landed on the floor with a thud, but the cover flung open and the pages fanned out frenetically.

  I started, forcing myself not to jump off the settee and grab up the lookbook. Meemaw was trying to tell me something, but how could she, right here in front of Josie?

  I peered at it, trying to see the page, the outfits, and figure out what the message was.

  “Harlow, did you hear me?”

  I snapped my gaze away from the book. “What?”

  She bent down, flipped the cover shut on the lookbook, and picked it up, quickly dropping it on the table as if it were a smoking gun. She pushed it toward the center with her fingertips, scootching to the corner of the couch to get as far away from it as she could. “This house is haunted, you know that?”

  “Whaa—?” The word stuck in my throat. I swallowed, trying to set it free, but my ricocheting thoughts stopped me cold. First Madelyn, then Gavin McClaine, and now Josie. The pressure of keeping my family’s secrets was weighing on my soul. Maybe I should have a coming out party and get it over with. Yes, I could ann
ounce with a flourish. We’re all charmed. It started with Butch Cassidy’s daughter and continued with every woman born in his line. No, no, no, we’re not witches, I could say. It’s more like we’re enchanted.

  “Remember at Halloween?” she said again. “All the kids used to joke around that Butch Cassidy’s ghost was hiding upstairs with the Sundance Kid, their pistols pointing at the front gate through the attic window. Anyone who went trick-or-treating here was taking their life in their hands.”

  I waited for her laugh, but it didn’t come. “I never knew that,” I said, my stomach coiling.

  “Yeah, well,” she said, waving away her own fears. “It’s an old house. Lots of drafts and creaks.”

  “Sometimes they keep me up at night,” I said, making myself giggle lightly. Of course, it was the truth. Meemaw, the ghost, was like a cat. She prowled the hallways in the dark, scaring me half to death whenever she’d settle down near me, startling me awake by gently stroking my hair with an invisible hand.

  Josie and I made awkward, idle chitchat as I tidied up my workroom, adjusting the size of my most utilitarian dress form so I could make any other minor alterations to Gracie’s gown. I yanked down the pulley contraption and made another inspection of Libby’s dress, bustling the back before releasing the lock and letting it slowly return to its place at the ceiling.

  Josie gazed in awe at the device. “You’re a clever woman, Harlow,” she said before she left.

  I shut the door behind her, trying not to dwell on her skittish backward glance as she hurried down the porch steps and across the flagstone path. Instead, I wondered if I was clever enough to figure out what had gone on among my grandmother, Mrs. James, and Eleanor Mcafferty so many years ago, and how it was connected to what was going on today.

  As soon as the garden gate closed behind Josie, I rushed to the lookbook, still on the coffee table, and flung it open, flipping through the pages until I found the one I was sure Meemaw had opened it to earlier. If this was a message, I didn’t understand.

  “Meemaw?” I looked around, but there was no sign of her. The pages held pictures, sketches, and details of a special collection I’d designed on my own time while I’d worked for Maximilian. I’d ordered all my fabrics from Emma One Sock, a one-stop online shop for designer fashion fabrics, had used a selection of middle-aged women in my SoHo neighborhood, and had created an artsy collection with Marrakesh-style two-toned caftans, hooked-back tunics, and relaxed caravan pants. SoHo Chic for women who wanted to grow older with grace.

  Finally, unable to decipher the message—if there even was one—I closed the book, got up, and headed back into the workroom. “I don’t understand, Meemaw,” I muttered as I pulled out my pattern paper, measuring tape, ruler, and Mrs. James’s measurements. I’d made her an outfit for a summer fund-raiser a while back. If anything, she’d lost a few pounds in the last couple of days, but that was easy enough to work with. It was easier to take something in than make it bigger.

  I still didn’t know what Meemaw was trying to tell me. I didn’t know what could have happened with Nana, Mrs. James, and Eleanor Mcafferty that would have resulted in a torn gown. And I had no way of helping Mrs. James get of jail other than to make her the perfect outfit and hoped things improved from there.

  It wasn’t much, but it was something.

  Chapter 23

  I dove headlong into a tiered dress for Mrs. James. I studied my sketch, tapping the end of my pencil against my cutting table, erasing, redrawing, and erasing again. The bodice was all wrong. I’d started with a scoop neck, something different from the typical button-up blouses the senator’s wife usually wore. But after seeing one of the SoHo Chic designs, I realized that she wore them because they flattered her, and I switched to a faux wraparound bodice attached to a three tiered skirt. A ruched, banded waist, lined bodice, and zip back finished it off.

  “Huh.” The sound of my voice seemed to bounce off the dress form in the corner, off the corkboard with sketches I’d done and wanted to make into samples, off the Mason jars filled with buttons and ribbons. Here I’d thought Meemaw was trying to give me a message about the murder, but now I knew it had been about the dress for the senator’s wife. How Loretta Mae had known I couldn’t quite envision Zinnia James’s perfect outfit, I didn’t know, but it was clear in my head now thanks to her.

  My mind wandered as I shaded in the design with a blunt blue colored pencil. I ran through my to-do list:

  1. Write Gracie’s pedigree.

  Now that I knew what her family history actually was, it had me in a bit of a quandary. What had Macon Vance said to Mrs. James? Something about forging credentials like a lawyer who hadn’t passed the bar. He’d compared it to a Margaret with no pedigree—like his daughter, Libby.

  “No wonder she doesn’t look anything like her father,” I muttered. “Poor Libby. Poor Steven.” I sighed. “Poor Macon Vance.” Had he wanted to know his child, or had he wanted money? Either way, he hadn’t deserved to die the way he had.

  2. Finish the Margaret gowns. Libby’s was almost done. Gracie’s needed some TLC, but I’d have it wrapped up in no time.

  3. Do what I could for Mrs. James by making her this dress. Which meant I would be pulling an all-nighter.

  4. Figure out just what Gavin McClaine knew about the Cassidy women, and decide what to do about it.

  5. Meet with the Lafayette sisters to go over final details for the pageant and the dress rehearsal.

  Now to prioritize the list. I was meeting with Fern and Trudy in a few hours. The rehearsal would take place in the morning and would eat up a good half of the day. Which meant the Margaret dresses needed to be done before then. D.O.N.E. So number two moved to the top of the list.

  Another visit to the sheriff’s office seemed in order. I could stop by to visit Madelyn and find out just how widespread superstitions about the Cassidy clan were. Maybe Gavin would be there. Two birds with one stone.

  Will could help with Gracie’s pedigree. I’d stop by his place on my way home from the sheriff’s station. I sat back, closed my eyes, and just like that, Mrs. James, decked out and looking like a vision in the dress I’d created, popped into my head. She looked fresh and rested again, fully recovered from the ordeal of being in jail. Her arm was draped around Gracie, looking equally perfect in her Margaret gown. Libby suddenly appeared, her shoulders thrown back and her head held high. Three for the price of one. I knew I was on the right track with all of their outfits.

  An hour later, I was in my zone at my worktable, Libby’s dress floating above me, hunched over my sketchbook. One by one, I’d drawn the pattern pieces I’d have to create to make Mrs. James’s dress a reality.

  “Harlow!” Nana’s voice shot through the house like a bullet. I jumped, my pencil sliding across the page and leaving a dark line in its wake.

  “In the workroom,” I hollered back as I flipped my pencil upside down and erased the mark.

  Nana padded in, her white socks gleaming. She wasn’t much for kisses and hugs, but she squeezed my shoulder—almost hard enough to make me wince. All the work over the years on her goat farm had made her strong as an ox. “Whatcha doin’, Ladybug?”

  I pushed my sketchbook over so she could see the drawings I’d been working on. That’s when I saw it. A little red-and-black ladybug flittering around the room. “Granny Cress,” I whispered. “She’s here.” I flicked my eyes to where the ladybug had landed on Nana’s shoulder, suddenly understanding that this was how Granny Cress stayed with us.

  Nana peered down, looking at it long and hard. A ripple passed over the ladybug’s body and I held my breath, half expecting it to morph into my great-great-grandmother.

  But the rippling stopped. There was no morphing. Goose bumps rose on my arms, though, as it turned its bulbous body like it was looking at me, but then it crawled onto the finger Nana held out, flapped its wings, and flew out the window.

  I rushed to the window, banging my hip against the corner of the cutting table o
n the way. “I never knew…” I said, trying to catch another glimpse of the ladybug.

  “Our charms are a might persnickety,” she said, as if that explained everything. Then she turned to my sketchbook. Her lips puckered as she leaned closer, studying the various angles I’d done of the ruffle tiered dress, before raising her eyes to mine.

  “This is for Zinnia, isn’t it?”

  The way she leveled her steady gaze at me sent me reeling back to when she’d caught me marching around her property playing my school-issued recorder. No matter what note I played, her herd of goats refused to follow me. She’d snatched the recorder from me and bam! “You can’t force a charm on yourself, Harlow Jane,” she’d said. “It’ll come. Just be patient.”

  Now I nodded. “I know you had some sort of falling out, Nana, but she’s not holding any grudges. You are her alibi. I just want to help her—”

  “By sewing her a magic dress.”

  I was old enough to know that all problems couldn’t be fixed with a simple wiggle of the nose or, say, a spell sewn into the seams of a dress, but I was hopeful enough to believe that in this case, it might. “It’s just as likely to work as not work,” I said.

  Nana opened her mouth to say something, but closed it again half a second later. “For her to wear at the pageant?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well,” Nana said, leaving a hint of bittersweet in the air after she spoke. “If you’re going to make this for her, do it right. Add a little bling around the belt, and a sparkle or two right here.” She drew her finger along the overlapping neckline.

  I was skeptical. She’d never struck me as the bling type. “You knew her when you were kids, Nana. Are you sure she’d still want that?”

  I followed her into the front room, through the dining room, and into the kitchen where she slipped on her Crocs and opened the Dutch door. “Some things in a person never change, Harlow. That’s something you should learn. Once a mama hen, always a mama hen. Once a blood sister, always a blood sister. And once a beauty queen, always a beauty queen.”