A Fitting End: A Magical Dressmaking Mystery

by Melissa Bourbon

  “A blood sister?” I skirted around her, blocking her from walking onto the back porch. “You and Mrs. James?”

  She folded her arms across her chest when I didn’t budge. “Zinnia and me… not even a man could tear our friendship apart, no sir.”

  “Granddaddy being the man?”

  “Right.” She gave a low whistle. “She fancied him, but he fancied me. She landed herself Jeb—or maybe he landed her—and that’s worked out just fine.”

  From the corner of my eye, I saw Thelma Louise nipping at a Knock Out Rose bush. “Shoo!” I said, letting my guard down. The split second was all it took. Nana barreled past me, trotting down the steps, slapping her leg with the palm of her hand. She whistled again, and it hit me. Goat whisperer. Nana had used Thelma Louise to distract me from questioning her. “Nana! Wait a sec!”

  I grabbed my cowboy boots from the corner of the kitchen, half running, half hopping as I tried to catch up to her and slip one of my boots on at the same time.

  She flung up her arm, never breaking stride. Thelma Louise skipped alongside her. “Harlow,” she said, her voice heavy with warning. “Drop it.”

  I stopped, shoved my foot into my boot, and ran to catch up. I grabbed her hand, pulling her to a dead stop. “I just want to know what happened that night.”

  She spun around, a fire in her eyes like I’d never seen. “We have a bond. A vow we all pledged never to break.”

  “Right. Your pact. What, did you kill someone?” I blurted, regretting the words the second they left my mouth.

  “Of course not,” she snapped. Thelma Louise had been nibbling at the hem of Nana’s plaid blouse. She stopped, turning her soulful eyes to my grandmother.

  Nana patted the goat’s head, her lips moving as she silently communicated with the animal. A second later, Thelma Louise trotted off toward the gate that connected Nana’s property to mine.

  “Then what?” I asked, after Thelma Louise had knocked the latch up with her nose and slipped through.

  Nana tugged at the loose curls in her hair. The streak of blond almost shimmered in the sunlight. “Our secrets,” she finally said.

  “Secrets from when you were fifteen years old? Are they even important anymore—” I stopped short. Oh. My. The truth hit me like a bushel of peaches. Our secrets. She meant the Cassidy secrets. “Mrs. James knows about our charms?” I whispered.

  “She does.”

  “Mrs. Mcafferty, too?”

  She nodded slowly. “But they’ll never tell. We swore it. Our charms will vanish if we break the vow,” she said, though I didn’t know how she knew that. “They’ll never tell.”

  “But Gavin McClaine knows something. Madelyn Brighton knows. People suspect. Nana, what if one of them already told?”

  Nana kicked at the dirt. “Impossible. We made a promise to each other.”

  A big ol’ black-and-white-checkered flag went up in my head. “And Eleanor… Mcafferty? What about her? She’s Gracie’s grandmother, but she doesn’t even know it.”

  Nana’s hands trembled. “No. Are you sure?”

  “Will told Gracie and me everything.”

  “Well, I’ll be.” She shook her head, as if she just couldn’t believe the small world we lived in. “Neither one of them will ever breathe a word, Harlow. They can’t because…” She started walking again, hurrying toward the sanctuary of her own property. “They can’t,” she said again.

  As I watched her go, I read between the lines, finishing in my head what she hadn’t said aloud. They wouldn’t breathe a word because Eleanor Mcafferty and Zinnia James had their own secrets to protect.

  Chapter 24

  Deputy Gavin McClaine pushed back his cowboy hat and grimaced. “Visitin’ again so soon, Ms. Cassidy?”

  I followed him into his father’s office, which he was apparently using when Hoss McClaine wasn’t. I sat in my usual spot. I’d been here with Will Flores recently, discussing a murder, and here I was again. This office was becoming all too familiar.

  Keeping my voice steady wasn’t working. The hammering in my chest threatened to knock the wind clean out of me. I didn’t know where to begin. Or how to begin.

  “Ms. Cassidy?” he said, emphasis on the Ms. and a distinct lack of interest dripping from his voice.

  I cleared the frog from my throat and scooted forward on my chair. “Mrs. James is innocent,” I blurted when I couldn’t think of a way to sugarcoat it.

  He leaned back in his chair, looking a little too high and mighty for my taste. At least Hoss McClaine had some down-home charm to him. Gavin had the down home, but lacked the charm. “That right? Did your”—he made air quotes—“special Cassidy intuition tell you that?”

  I debated how to answer. From what he’d said at the jailhouse, I suspected Gavin knew something about the Cassidy women’s magic. What I didn’t know was how deep his knowledge went. Did he have an inkling that something was off with us, or had Mrs. Mcafferty or Mrs. James broken their pact with Nana and said something? I supposed Madelyn could have spilled the beans. I didn’t know her well, but she was one of the first friends I’d made back in Bliss. I hoped she’d kept my secret.

  “Yes… and no,” I finally answered. “I don’t have any proof—”

  “Without proof, what you think doesn’t mean diddly-squat.” He crossed one leg over the other, letting his knee flop to the side. His frown deepened. “But just so you know, we released her. Seems your grandmother and Miss June over at the teahouse ponied up an alibi.” He gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head, as if he still couldn’t believe it. “Until we have some solid evidence and bring charges, the case against her’ll be dropped.”

  The blood that had been coursing through my veins suddenly calmed. “Gee, Deputy, you look upset. I’m real sorry to hear your theory didn’t pan out,” I said, not bothering to suppress the smile in my voice.

  “Yeah, I can see you’re all broken up about it.”

  “Do you have any other leads?”

  He dropped his leg and leaned forward. “You mean besides you?”

  The blood that had calmed to a gentle flow burst through me again like a dam breaking. “Me?”

  “Your scissors. I haven’t forgotten.”

  “B-but…” Criminy. At least Mrs. James had a potential motive. I hadn’t even known the man.

  “Blackmail,” he said, a smirk on his face.

  The word spiraled through my head. “You think he was blackmailing me?”

  “No, Harlow. Relax. Your damn scissors are a pain in my ass, but I don’t think you killed the guy. Blackmail, meaning Macon Vance was hittin’ the Jameses up for a hefty sum.”

  “Oh!” I released the anxious breath I’d been holding. Damn him for scaring me like that.

  “I’m just not sure what he had on them, and they’re not talkin’. But everybody’s got some dirty laundry, don’t they, Harlow? Even a senator and his wife. Even… you.”

  There it was, the big ol’ white elephant in the room. What did he know, and how did he know it? “I don’t know what you mean, Gavin,” I said.

  He dropped his knee again and leaned forward, steepling his fingers and propping his chin on them. “No matter how hard you try, it’s tough to keep things a secret in a small town.”

  “And…?” I schooled my expression, doing my best to mask the fact that I had no idea what he was talking about, but my mind raced. “Gavin, if you have something to say, just spit it out, would you?”

  He narrowed his eyes, and I could tell he was trying to read me. He angled his chair so he could drum his fingers on the desk. “We found a rough drawing of a family tree in Vance’s house,” he said. “It was right there. The intersection of two family lines. Butch Cassidy was with Etta Place around the same time he was with Texana Harlow.”

  Gavin nodded, looking smug. “Seems our deceased golf pro, Macon Vance, was trying to blackmail the Jameses over this very information. It would be bad for the senator’s career—or so Vance thought—to be
related to outlaws and folks like you—from the wrong side of town.”

  Related to? I barely stopped my mouth from gaping open. What he was saying dawned on me. It was common knowledge that Zinnia James’s husband, Jebediah, was a descendant of Etta Place, but if Etta had been with Butch Cassidy, then…

  Gavin seemed to see realization on my face. “That’s right, Harlow. Young debutante Libby Allen, the James’s granddaughter, is your cousin thanks to Butch Cassidy and his philandering ways.”

  “And Mrs. James knows?” I asked once my voice returned.

  “Oh yeah. She confessed it all. Don’t make her guilty of nothin’, of course, but a lot of ugly truths.”

  Lord almighty. Could it really be true?

  Deputy Gavin McClaine folded his arms across his chest, tucking his hands close up under his armpits. “I’m bothered by somethin’.”

  Outside, the clouds had finally released their water and a light rain fell. As if on cue, thunder cracked and jagged lightning lit up the darkening sky. I dragged my attention back to Gavin, trying not to take the ominous summer storm as a sign of worse things to come. “What’s that?”

  “How would Vance know so much about Etta and Butch and their family line?”

  It was a good question, and one I was pretty sure Mrs. James hadn’t considered whenever she’d fessed up to the deputy.

  I hopped up from my chair to pace around, suddenly too antsy to sit still. “She may have thought it was true, but what if he made the whole thing up?”

  Gavin’s jaw worked as he thought, and I got the feeling his mind was processing through the ifs, ands, and buts of the blackmail scenario. “Right, because how would a guy from Amarillo know who in Bliss descended from some old outlaws? See, I don’t think he would.”

  “He wouldn’t. And anyway, Etta was the Sundance Kid’s girlfriend, not Butch’s,” I said, although I knew that didn’t amount to a hill of beans. “Did the Jameses pay the blackmail?” I asked.

  Gavin pushed off the desk and headed toward the door. “As far as we can tell, no, they didn’t, but they do make considerable donations to the club and Jeb James is on the board. We’re lookin’ into where donations go. Specifically.”

  As in fraud? Oh boy. That wouldn’t look good for the Jameses. I was left with a saddlebag full of questions and no answers. Did Mrs. James make the whole blackmail scenario up, or had Macon Vance really tried to wring money out of them over Libby’s paternity? Was the story about Etta and Butch having another child even true? I had another troubling thought. Why was Gavin telling me any of this? I’d thought I was more a thorn in his side than anything else, so why the sudden confidence? I had a slight suspicion that I was being used… I just didn’t know how I was being used.

  Gavin stopped at the door and gripped the doorjamb. “See you around the waterin’ hole, Ms. Cassidy,” he said.

  Who knew what watering hole he was talking about. I didn’t much take to the local bar scene, and riding the mechanical bull at Billy Bob’s in Fort Worth wasn’t high on my list of things to do. I skirted around him, giving a quick wave good-bye. “Yeah,” I said. “See you.”

  It wasn’t until I was halfway to the country club that I realized I’d forgotten to say hey to Madelyn and to dig deeper into what, exactly, Gavin McClaine knew about the Cassidy charms.

  Chapter 25

  Just as I was pulling into the country club parking lot to meet Trudy and Fern Lafayette, my phone beeped. I pulled over, dug my cell phone out of the vintage purse I’d made using a kiss lock frame and some Maximilian remnants, and read the incoming message.

  Can’t meet. Trudy’s in the hospital.

  It was signed: Fern

  The hospital?! I texted back, Is she okay?

  With the truck in PARK but still running, I drummed my fingers against the steering wheel, nervously waiting for Fern’s response. After three long minutes, my phone was still quiet. “Hell’s bells,” I muttered, channeling Meemaw. “Why aren’t you texting back?”

  Instantly, the phone beeped and a message appeared.

  Send prayers.

  Oh, Lord. My foot jerked, hitting the gas pedal, revving the truck’s engine. I threw it into reverse, backed out, and two seconds later was racing to Presbyterian, Bliss’s one and only hospital.

  Long, jagged spears of lightning crackled in the sky as I raced through the hospital parking lot. By the time I got to the main entrance, I was soaked through. Caught without an umbrella in July. Go figure.

  As I shook the rainwater off, I wondered about death. Did where a person died have anything to do with how easy it was to come back? What if Meemaw had died in a hospital, for example, instead of peacefully asleep in her own bed. Would she still have been able to hang around 2112 Mockingbird Lane as the resident ghost?

  Of course, there was no way to find out and I wasn’t anxious to discover the truth for myself, so I just chalked it up as a random question I’d probably never know the answer to and promptly forgot about it.

  A very sweet, snowy-haired woman at the information desk gave me Trudy Lafayette’s room number and I rode the elevator to the fifth floor. The thing about hospitals is, once you smell the mingling of antiseptic and sickness, you never forget it. It clings to you the way morning dew clings to individual strands of grass.

  As I stepped off the elevator, I sucked in three or four deep breaths just to get used to the smell; then I searched for Trudy’s room. I stopped outside the door, peeking in so I’d know what to expect. Fern’s text hadn’t said why Trudy was here or what her condition was, so I prepared myself for the worst. “You comfortable?” I heard Fern’s voice as she fussed over her sister, propping pillows under her head.

  From where I stood, I could see Trudy’s hands flailing as she swatted at Fern. “Jus’ wike Louisha,” she said, her words nearly unintelligible.

  “I warned you,” Fern retorted, sympathy heavy in her voice. “But that’s been a long time ago now. It’s not your time yet.”

  “Good heavensh, no it’sh not,” she said, but her voice was muffled, as if her cheeks were stuffed with cotton balls and her lips were numb and swollen. I closed my eyes. Oh no, had Trudy had a stroke?

  She was lucid enough to gossip about someone, though, I told myself, so that had to be a good sign. I gathered up my skittish nerves, knocked on the door, and poked my head in. “Hello!” I said brightly.

  “Who’sh that?” Trudy said, her hands flailing again. “Fern, move outta the way, would you? Come on in, honey.”

  One side of her face was swollen and discolored, her right eye nearly swollen shut. Air caught in my throat and I wiped my sweaty palms on my jeans, concentrating all my efforts on keeping my expression perfectly… expressionless. “Are you sure? I can come back—”

  She mumbled something unintelligible. “Ah, it’s the dressmaker,” Fern said, translating. Trudy squinted her eyes, peering at me after Fern finally stepped out of the way. She chuckled, but with half of her face frozen, she looked twisted and maniacal. She spoke slowly, trying to enunciate her words, but it came out sounding like gobbledygook.

  “I’m sorry—what?”

  She slowed it down even more. “Twying… to wid yourself… o da… competition?”

  I filled in the blanks, then stared at her. “Wh… aaat?”

  Fern squeezed Trudy’s hand. “Never mind her. She’s a little loopy.”

  “What happened?”

  “Someone broke into our house and injected her while she slept.”

  “With what?”

  “That vile stuff. Botox,” Fern said.

  I started, the conversation I’d had with Gavin McClaine at the jailhouse slamming into my brain. Two break-ins and an assault. He never did say what was stolen, but I guess now I knew.

  “We’re lucky,” Fern said. “An old friend of ours died from a mistake like this. It’s why I never use the stuff, and Trudy’s always careful to use low dosages. She always says lightning doesn’t strike the same place twice. Guess she wa
s wrong about that.”

  Trudy harrumphed from the bed. “I am wite hewe.”

  She might be right there, but I could barely understand her. “Trudy, I’m so sorry.”

  “Why you sowwy?” she asked, her voice slow and muffled. “You do’t. Get wid of a dwessmaker?”

  I made sense of her words in my head, stunned when I realized what she was accusing me of. “Of course I didn’t do it!” Gone was the sweet Trudy from our first meeting. Bitter Trudy had taken her place—not that I blamed her after all her suffering, but still…

  “It went to her brain. She’s not thinking clearly,” Fern said after a while. She and I did our best to make light conversation and to calm Trudy down. After about ten minutes, the poor thing drifted off into dreamland.

  “She slept through it?” I asked Fern quietly.

  “Yup. We were both drugged,” she said with a hiss. “Near as I can tell, it had to be while we were at the country club doing final fittings for the Margaret gowns and the beaus’ suits. Sheriff thinks it was in some lemonade we drank. Whenever the break-in happened, we were dead gone.”

  A visible shudder went through Fern. “Doctor thinks she’s gonna be okay, but it’s been touch and go. Respiratory paralysis.” She sank down into the chair at the side of Trudy’s bed. “Headaches are a small price to pay if this is the option,” she muttered.

  “I’m sorry,” I said to Fern, squeezing her hand.

  She gazed up at me, her eyes tired, her face drawn. “Would you finish the Margaret fittings for us?”

  I knew how much asking that simple question cost her. To be left out of the pageant after Mrs. James had me ask them to help again had to leave them both feeling empty.

  “Just until you’re able to come back,” I said. “Don’t you worry about a thing.”

  She looked at Trudy’s puffy, caricature-like face, frowning. “I don’t think I can do that,” she said, “but I’ll try not to.”

  Chapter 26