“Loretta Mae Cassidy, I need that,” I said, scolding her as if she actually were a young child, and not a ghost with arrested development.
In the blink of an eye, the apron lost its shape and the rippling air settled back to normal again. A pipe in the ceiling groaned, but it was a happy sound, almost like laughter, and I knew Meemaw was going to move on to some other parlor trick. I took the apron from the hook she’d somehow gotten it on (I had no idea how she managed to maneuver tangible items to and fro in the house, but she did), carrying it out to Georgia.
She’d been running her index finger over the cuticles on her left hand, but looked up as I came toward her. “Is that it?” she asked, her eyes narrowing, and for just a moment, I saw a crack in Georgia’s perfect veneer. Could she have had a grudge against Delta? And if so, was it enough for her to have killed over?
I nodded and handed the apron to her, tucking the thought aside for now. As I pushed my glasses up the bridge of my nose, I could see the uncertainty on her face. She took it from me, gently spreading it out across her lap.
Instantly, I felt the need to defend my design and fabric choice, but inside I was kicking myself. I was off my game. I’d gotten it wrong. Oh God, these aprons might well do me in. “Ms. Emmons, let me start by saying that I don’t know you well, but from what I’ve seen of you, you’re a sophis—”
“Harlow,” she said, cutting me off. “Is this how you see me? Flowers and polka dots?”
“Not exactly,” I said, wanting to explain, and not at all sure that I could, “but that’s the point. You’re a sophisticated woman with style and poise. I wanted to create something that honored those things about you, but I also wanted to offer you something a little bit out of your comfort zone. The flowers in the main fabric are classic and traditional, while the polka dots are just fun. They’re meant to channel something whimsical within you, if that makes sense.”
She sat up on the settee, her back straight, and gazed at the apron in her lap. Slowly, she lifted her chin and met my gaze. “You do realize this is not something I would ever choose on my own?”
It wasn’t a question, but a statement of fact. All I could do was nod. I opened my mouth, ready to apologize for misjudging things, but I heard Meemaw’s voice in my head telling me to never apologize for what I believed. So I stopped myself from defending my choices. This was the apron I’d seen for Georgia Emmons. This was how my charm worked, and I couldn’t second-guess myself now. I had to stand by my creativity and my designs, as well as my pattern choices. “If you wanted something you’d simply choose on your own, you never would have come to me to make something. You could have gone to a big-box store, or a kitchen store, or shopped online. You and your friends wanted something different. You wanted something individualistic. You wanted something only I could envision for you. And that’s what I’ve given you, Ms. Emmons. If it’s not to your liking—”
“Whoa!” Her stern expression cracked as she smiled. “I didn’t say I didn’t like it, only that it wasn’t what I pictured for myself. It reminds me of something I might have wanted in my twenties or thirties if things had been different.” Her voice grew quiet. Contemplative. “I just wonder . . .”
She trailed off, looking out the front window. I remained quiet, waiting for her to finish her thought. Finally, she did.
“When did I lose the fun side of myself?” she mused.
“I don’t think you’ve lost it,” I said, answering her even though I knew it was more of a rhetorical question. “I think sometimes we just have to be reminded that there’s more to us than we sometimes realize or permit the world to see.”
Her lips drew together and she nodded. “Truer words were never spoken, Harlow. I love it. I absolutely love it!”
I heaved a silent sigh of relief. Despite my attempt at being strong and determined to be true to my charm, my insides had been coiled up in a knot. “I’m so glad.”
“The girls aren’t going to believe it. It’s so unlike me, yet it’s completely perfect in every way.”
“The girls?”
“Randi, Cynthia, Sherri, Bennie, Coco,” she said, naming the Red Hatters.
“How long have y’all been together?” I asked.
“Going on six years now, give or take, as a group, but of course we’ve known each other much longer than that.” She tapped the pads of her fingers with her thumb, counting. “Yes, that’s right, this is the sixth year. Time goes too quickly.” We fell into a moment of silence, recognizing Delta’s passing without saying a word. Time went too fast, and life was unpredictable. Death, and especially murder, had a way of putting a pall over a room.
“Who’s next?” she asked after the moment passed.
“I haven’t decided yet. Maybe Randi.” Randi Martin taught yoga, was as skinny as a summer day was long, and I had no idea what her apron should look like or what magic I’d be sewing into the seams. “I’m going to take a class from her tomorrow. Thought that might help me learn something about her, so I can come up with the right design.”
“I’ve taken her yoga classes. She’s good. A little earthy, if you know what I mean, but I’m sure you’ll like it.”
I’d never taken a yoga class, so I didn’t know what to expect, but I was excited, both for the sun salutations and for the chance to learn about Randi. If I learned anything about Delta in the process, all the better.
Georgia Emmons stood, folding her apron over her arm. “Can we pay you when all the aprons are finished?” she asked.
“Oh, definitely. I know where to find you,” I with a smile.
“I guess you do. I don’t think I realized you lived right next door to Delta. She rarely, if ever, had us over to her house, you see.”
“Why is that?” They’d been friends for such a long time, so why wouldn’t they spend time at one another’s homes?
She thought for a moment, as if contemplating how to answer. “Delta knew everyone in town. If you met her, you’d feel as if you’d known her forever.”
I thought about that. Delta and the Cassidy women had never been close, but it was true that, even within the framework of a feud, there was something about her that made it feel like we had history that went beyond our ridiculous argument.
“So you’re saying she wasn’t as friendly as people thought?” Once again, I came back to the idea that people wore masks, presenting what they wanted others to see. Delta was in real estate and a visible member of the community, as was Coco. With their connections to the university and the people they’d worked with, everyone seemed to know them.
But was the friendly persona Delta showed people the real her, or was it simply calculated? It seemed pretty clear that Delta had an agenda of her own, and that manipulation may have been part of her MO.
Georgia’s voice brought me out of my thoughts. “I stopped by her house once to drop off some church receipts. She didn’t invite me in, but I caught a glimpse of the interior through the open door.”
“They have a lot of interesting things in there, don’t they?”
But Georgia shook her head. “They do,” she agreed. “Delta’s always been into antiques, but it’s not that. I mean, it is, but it’s more than that. I saw some things that I’m not sure . . .” She trailed off, letting the sentence drift away.
“You can tell me,” I said, encouraging her to share her observation.
She hesitated for another minute, then nodded. “There was a sideboard that I know I’d seen in the church basement. And on top of that, there was a lamp that I’m almost positive belonged to Cynthia. She’d donated it to a church tag sale last year.”
“Maybe Delta bought it at the sale?” I suggested, not quite following what she was trying to say.
“Maybe,” she said, but I could hear the doubt in her voice. “But the thing is, something just didn’t feel right, so I checked. There was no receipt for it, and no one remembers selling it. We all just chalked it up to shoddy record keeping with the sale, but when I saw it through
the door, and when Delta didn’t let me in, well, I wondered.”
“Do you think she stole the lamp?” I asked, trying to get to the root of Georgia’s suspicions.
She shrugged. “I never wanted to believe that, but maybe . . . I guess so.”
“The sideboard, too?” Logistically, how would Delta steal a piece of furniture from the church basement? That was one question, but the more obvious question was why. Why steal it when the theft could easily be found out? What would her motive have been?
“Anything’s possible,” she said.
I knew that was utterly true. I’d seen it proven over and over.
Georgia Emmons departed with her apron, leaving a slew of questions in her wake. Delta Lea Mobley as a kleptomaniac or a straight-out thief hadn’t ever crossed my mind, but then again, the best thieves seem above suspicion. I didn’t know how this information translated to making her a victim of murder, but I filed it away in the back of my head to consider at another time.
Chapter 9
Walking into Bliss’s yoga center, I felt an immediate sense of peace settle over me. The perimeter of the small lobby was lined with slatted wooden benches, multiple pairs of sandals and shoes lined up beneath them. A poster on the wall illustrated a whole range of yoga poses that I’d never achieve, even if I practiced for a million years. Pose number seventy-eight, a man balancing on one arm, his legs twisted above him like a pretzel, his other arm stretched above his head, made me want to turn and run. I didn’t see how that particular position was humanly possible.
Randi Martin’s singsong voice wafted to the lobby from the studio space behind the blue cloth curtains that separated the two rooms. She was the reason I was here, not the contortionist pictures on the wall. I slipped my shoes off, pushed them under one of the benches, and poked my head between the two curtain panels. The wood floor stretched out before me, the small lobby opening up to a large studio. Three people were early birds. They had their yoga mats laid out, blankets tri-folded and placed at the back end of the mats, foam blocks and off-white canvas straps set to the side, and were sitting cross-legged and ready for class.
“Harlow?” Randi called to me from the front of the room where she’d been lighting a candle. She padded over barefoot, her long black yoga pants accentuating her leg muscles, her thin orange cotton T-shirt long and fitted at the waist. She looked the part of a yoga teacher. I closed my eyes for the briefest moment, hoping to get a vision of an apron, but my mind was blank. Randi as a yogi and Randi in the kitchen at the planned progressive dinner weren’t meshing. I needed to give it time. Maybe by the end of the class I’d have a better idea of what made her tick.
“I thought I’d take your class,” I said, smiling at her.
She chuckled, her smile breaking up her long face. “To get an idea of what my perfect apron might be like?”
I felt myself blush. “How’d you know?”
“Everyone in town knows how you work, Harlow. You get to know a person and that helps you form a vision of whatever you’re making for them. You think taking my class will help you understand me.”
I just managed to stop my jaw from dropping. I’d had no idea I was so transparent with how my charm worked. Likely everyone chalked it up to my process, rather than magic, but still, I was stunned. “I didn’t know everyone knew that about my work.”
“You’re a novelty. A small-town girl who went to the big city and came back intact. You’re like a child star who didn’t get sucked into fame and drugs, instead figuring out how to become a quality actor.”
“No Miley Cyrus syndrome for me,” I said with a laugh. I’d worked in New York and had returned to Bliss without any scars. I was both small town and big city, and that’s exactly what my designs represented.
“Grab two blocks and a strap,” Randi said, pointing to the corner where all the supplies were neatly stacked.
She took a mat and blanket and padded back across the room. I followed, setting down my things next to the mat she laid out. “Have you done yoga before?” she asked.
“Never.”
She folded the blanket, set it at the back of the mat like the others, and told me to sit, legs crossed.
I slipped off my sweat jacket, tossing it aside, straightened the waistband of the yoga pants I’d worn, pulled down the hem of the stretchy workout top, and did as Randi said. My spine instantly straightened when I put my sitting bones on the blanket.
“Now just breathe,” Randi said before gliding across the floor to speak with someone else.
In my limited experience, people were often killed by someone they knew, and often by someone they knew well. Everyone was a suspect. I watched Randi from the corner of my eye. Could she have killed Delta Lea Mobley? She was thin and lithe, but with small, firm muscles evident on her arms. But Delta had been plus-sized. Could Randi have lured her into the cemetery, picked up a big rock, and crashed it against the back of her head, all without Delta putting up a fight?
I couldn’t see it.
My eyes fluttered closed and I tried to clear my mind, but a familiar voice greeting Randi interrupted my yoga peace. Megan Mobley. And by her side was Rebecca Masters. They both looked like they knew their way around a yoga studio. Rebecca wore stretchy capri pants and a tank top. Megan had on steel blue pants that flared below the knee and had a split in the back up to the top of the calves. She wore a cream-colored cami under a black long-sleeve burnout tee.
When Megan walked into the studio, the air in the room grew still, as if everyone was holding their breath. She didn’t seem to notice that all eyes were on her as she walked toward me with Rebecca, slipping her yoga mat from the black cylindrical bag slung over her shoulder.
“So good to see you here, Megan,” Randi called.
Megan smiled wanly, giving a half wave, but otherwise didn’t make eye contact. She kept her head down as she laid out her mat. My heart ached for her. Grief was a heavy burden.
“Hi,” I said to them both.
Megan glanced at me, that same sad smile on her face. “Hi.”
“Good to see you again,” Rebecca said.
Before I could even think of something more to say to Megan, Randi started class. We brought our hands together in front of our chests and chanted “Om” three times. Randi led the class in a series of stretches, gradually moving into downward dog and into poses that forced my body into positions I didn’t know it was capable of. Randi pushed us, moving us through sun salutations, balancing poses, and floor poses. I concentrated on my breath, my muscles quivering with each new move.
Randi flowed through each one, demonstrating with ease, her biceps strong, her glutes even stronger, and I reconsidered my earlier question as to whether she could have heaved a rock and hit Delta in the back of the head. It was clear that she had the strength for it, but I couldn’t think of any possible motivation for her to have done such a thing.
There wasn’t any chance to talk to Randi or Megan during class, but I stuck around after the closing relaxation, slowly rolling up my mat to stall for time. I snuck a look at Megan. Her eyes glistened. The yoga class had relaxed me, given me time to reflect about how to talk to Megan, and made me aware of muscles I didn’t know I had. But for Megan, the class seemed to have heightened her sorrow. Her chin quivered. Rebecca stayed by her side, her hand on her friend’s back.
“Are you okay?” I asked, everything else I’d wanted to ask her going out of my head.
“That’s kind of a loaded question, isn’t it?” she said.
“I guess it is.”
“It’s okay,” Rebecca whispered. “Just take it one breath at a time.”
Megan nodded, breathing in and out, slowly. Audibly. As if class were still going on and we were focusing on our breath. Then, finally, she said, “It’s complicated. I just can’t wrap my head around the fact that my mother was killed. And not just, like, passively killed in an accident, or something. That’s not premeditated, is it? I mean, does a person plan a murder and say to t
hemself, I think I’ll kill her with a rock to the head?”
She’d put so succinctly what I’d been thinking all along. Delta’s demise likely hadn’t been planned, it had been a heat-of-the-moment killing. One thing about that scenario bothered me, though. I’d found Delta, and while she’d looked a little disheveled lying faceup in the grave, she didn’t look like she’d just fought off an attacker. The blow to the head had come from behind. Would she have had a heated argument with someone and then turned her back?
It didn’t seem like a smart move to me. Unless she was used to arguing with her killer, hadn’t thought anything about turning around, and never saw the attack coming.
Instead of returning my yoga mat to the stack Randi had taken it from, I set it back down, flattened the soft wool blanket, and sat face to face with Megan and Rebecca. “Who do you think might have done this, Megan?”
It was a brutal question, but I knew it was something that had to be preoccupying her thoughts. I knew I wouldn’t have been able to think about anything else if the same thing had happened to someone I loved. In fact I probably would have suspected every person I passed on the street. The idea that someone she knew could be responsible for her mother’s death had to feel deeply unsettling. The sympathy I felt toward Megan suddenly filled me with a determination to help her. She could never undo the fact that her mother had been murdered. She could never erase the painful tragedy that was sure to haunt her. But she could have some closure in knowing who was responsible, and knowing that justice had prevailed.
She leaned toward me, chin down, but there was a new sparkle in her eyes. “That’s the thing Harlow, I have no idea. She didn’t do much to endear herself to the people around her, but murder? I can’t imagine who would have been capable of doing that to my mother.”
I thought about Jeremy Lisle and what else was behind their hostile relationship, but mostly, I wondered how Delta got along with others in the community. I needed to understand Delta better if I had any hope of figuring out what had happened to her. “Can I ask you about her Red Hat group? They’ve been friends for a long time, right?”
A Seamless Murder Page 8