A Custom Fit Crime

by Melissa Bourbon

  “Your friend Orphie.”

  The nerves in my gut jettisoned to my head, making me feel as if it were stuffed full of cotton. “What happened?”

  “I don’t have the full story, but from what I gather, she was at the bead shop when she just collapsed. Josie said she turned green, acted like she was nauseated and headed for the restroom, and then she just fell. Josie called 911 and they brought her here.”

  “How did you—?”

  “I’m here to get some statistics for the Bliss Web site I’m working on for the town. I saw the emergency team wheel her in on a gurney.”

  The vise around my insides tightened. “Is she . . . will she . . .”

  “I don’t know, love.”

  I stood without thinking, grabbing my purse from the porch and blindly walking down the steps. “On my way.”

  Will was by my side the next second, guiding me by the elbow. “What’s going on?”

  I headed toward my truck as I told him what Madelyn had said, my voice sounding hollow as I heard myself utter the words, “Orphie . . . collapsed . . . hospital . . .”

  He took the keys from my hand, opening the passenger door for me. “I’ll drive,” he said.

  “Good idea.” I slid in, and seconds later, I was having a déjà vu experience. Not so long ago, we’d driven to Presbyterian, Bliss’s only hospital, to stop a killer, Now we were speeding down the road toward praying we’d find Orphie alive and on the mend.

  Chapter 23

  We stopped at the information desk where an elderly volunteer gave me Orphie’s room number and pointed us in the right direction. She’d already been moved from the ICU to a regular room, a very good sign. Will stayed by my side as I half walked, half ran down the wide hallways, rode the elevator up two floors, and finally found her room. The cloying mixture of antiseptic and sickness filled my nostrils, pushing down into my gut until I was nauseated with it.

  It hung around me like a nebula lying thickly around a lone planet. “She’ll be fine,” I muttered, trying to reassure myself.

  Will kept silent, his hand on my lower back as we found her room and pushed open the large, pneumatic door. It closed behind us slowly and with a soft whoosh.

  The curtains around the first bed were drawn. The second bed was empty. No overcrowding at Presby. At least Orphie had her own room.

  I found the opening in the curtain and peeked through. The bed was slightly inclined and she was propped up by several pillows. Her eyes were closed, her breathing steady, her hair spilled gently over the pillow. Even in repose, she had that angelically lovely quality about her. I had a flash in my mind of her in a lightweight clingy knit skirt and a ruched top with a crisscrossed front, both in soft lavender. I took it as another sign that she was going to be fine. At least that’s what I told myself. “Orphie?”

  Her eyelids fluttered.

  “Orphie?” I said again, this time slipping through the curtain and taking her hand. “Can you hear me?”

  Her eyelids quivered again, but this time they cracked open. “Harlow.”

  I perched on the side of the bed and took her hand. “How do you feel?”

  She managed a little smile. “Like a million bucks.”

  I couldn’t pussyfoot around, so I just blurted out my question. “What happened, Orphie?”

  What there was of her smile faded. “I felt a little sick, but I tried to just keep going. Your friend Josie was showing me how to string felt beads. And then it just hit me. I . . . my stomach . . .”

  She stopped, glancing over my shoulder at Will.

  “Your stomach was upset?” I asked, letting her off the hook for giving us the down and dirty details.

  She nodded. “I thought I could make it back to your house, but . . . but . . . I couldn’t. I lost it in the bathroom, and then I . . . I just collapsed.”

  Behind me, the door whooshed open, followed by the thud of cowboy boots hitting the linoleum floor. I turned to see Deputy Sheriff Gavin McClaine hurry in. He was clean-shaven but still managed to look tousled. He could have stepped right into a TV show about a powerful, good-looking Southern lawman. The women would fall at his feet.

  Me? He got my craw and I just wanted to throttle him for showing up here after Orphie had gone through such an ordeal.

  Except they were, apparently, seeing each other.

  He slowed once he saw us next to the hospital bed, nodding at Will as he sidled past him. He came up beside me, moving so he was next to the bed and leaning down close to Orphie, his expression softening. “How are you holding up, Miss Cates?” he drawled, the charm he normally dripped replaced by concern.

  If I’d been able to catch Orphie’s eye, I would have sent her a warning look. Gavin was like a snake with blue eyes, drawing you in before he shot out an attack. The conversation between him and Lindy Reece was front and center in my mind. Either he suspected Orphie of having something to do with Beaulieu’s murder, or he was using Orphie to get more information about me, Beaulieu, and the whole ugly situation. Maybe both. No matter what, I was afraid this was all just a game to him. I easily envisioned him with a toothpick or blade of grass, ready to spin his six-shooter and take out Jesse James or some other old-time outlaw.

  But Orphie didn’t look my way. She remained focused on Gavin. “Doctor said I’ll live,” she said, managing a pained smile.

  “About that.” Gavin skirted around me, pulling up the chair that had been pushed into the corner.

  She looked up at him, her eyes wide and expectant. Oh Lord, she was enamored with him. With Gavin McClaine. The overzealous, pompous deputy. Good God, I’d thought Orphie had better taste than that.

  He cleared his throat again. “I just talked to the doctor. They’re still waitin’ on the results from some of the tests, but it seems pretty clear that you ingested poison.”

  What little color Orphie had in her cheeks instantly vanished. “Poison?” she repeated, her voice scarcely more than a whisper.

  “What?” I said, squeezing her hand, bolstered by Will’s hand on my shoulder.

  “There’s more,” Gavin said, grimacing. “The symptoms are consistent with a plant. Something called a sago palm . . .”

  My temples pounded, drowning out the rest of his voice. The sago palm. “That’s the same poison that killed Beaulieu,” I said, my voice strained.

  Will’s hand tightened on my shoulder, just barely, but enough to bring me back to the moment.

  Gavin nodded. “One and the same. I’m afraid this was an attempted murder.” He looked back at Orphie and once again, a soft, reassuring smile graced his lips. “Thank the Lord it didn’t work.”

  She pulled her hand away from mine and held it out to Gavin. I watched, shocked, as he placed his, palm down, in hers, their fingers wrapping around each other’s hand. “Wh-who?” she managed.

  Gavin broke his connection with Orphie long enough to shoot me a penetrating look. “I don’t know yet, but believe me, I will find out, and whoever it is will be strung up by their heels.”

  I’d Googled the sago palm after the sheriff told me about it, and found that symptoms can start quickly, or take up to twelve hours. That didn’t narrow down the time frame much. I perched on the side of the bed, edging between my friend and the deputy. “Orphie, what did you eat today?”

  “Or drink?” Gavin added.

  Her eyes glazed, her lids drifting to half-mast. “Breakfast at Harlow’s,” she said. “I had c-coffee while I helped M-Midori organize patterns and sort through . . . through the Prêt-à-Porter rack.”

  She stopped, her breathing growing heavy. Labored. My gut clenched, worry invading every one of my pores. She had the same poison in her that had killed Beaulieu. I reminded myself that she wouldn’t have been moved to an ordinary room if she was in danger. Then again, people relapsed. I squeezed her hand. “Come on, Orphie. You can fight this.�
��

  Her eyelids fluttered, then opened. “I—I went to S-Seven G-Gables,” she muttered softly. “T-tea and s-scones.”

  My gaze snapped to Will’s, then to Gavin’s. “Why’d you go to the inn?” I asked, my mind racing through the possibilities. Hattie and Raylene would have made the tea and scones, but any one of the various suspects could have poisoned Orphie’s food. They were all staying there, after all.

  But Orphie’s eyes drifted closed and she didn’t answer. Panic set in. I pressed the nurse’s call button, standing back when a woman dressed in teal scrubs rushed in and assessed Orphie. “She’s all right,” she announced after an agonizingly long exam. “Her body’s fighting, but she needs rest.”

  Relief flooded me. She was going to be okay. She had to be okay. But she wouldn’t be able to give us any more answers for the time being, which meant another visit to Seven Gables was in order.

  After another minute, Will, Gavin, and I retreated to the hallway.

  “So, Harlow,” Gavin said after the pneumatic door closed again. “I have to ask, did you poison your friend?”

  The energy around the three of us pulsated and Will surged forward. “What the hell is your problem, McClaine?”

  Gavin stepped back, but his jaw tightened, the veins in his neck pulsing. “You best watch yourself, Flores.”

  This time I put my hand on Will’s shoulder, hoping he’d simmer down. His muscles bunched under my touch, but he stilled. “She didn’t have anything to do with that guy’s death.”

  Gavin folded his arms over his chest. “He was stealing her designs. I have to ask.”

  Will’s eyes darted my way before zeroing in again on Gavin. “That hardly makes her a murderer.”

  “I agree,” he said.

  I’d been ready to fire off another rebuttal, but stopped, staring at Gavin. “You do?”

  “If you’re a murderer, I’m a rodeo star,” he said. “But I wouldn’t be doin’ my job if I didn’t pursue every avenue of investigation.”

  Will’s fists were still clenched tight, but his shoulders loosened up. “So, what do you think?” he ground out.

  “I think it could have been any one of the people at Buttons and Bows that morning,” he began, “and I think there must be a connection between Beaulieu and Miss Cates.”

  His eyes clouded as he spoke Orphie’s name. Did he have real feelings for Orphie? Maybe his flirting and flippant nature was merely a ploy or a defense mechanism he used to protect himself from getting hurt. After all, in high school, he’d been shy and awkward—and had been picked on. Those were not things easily overcome.

  Interesting.

  “Cassidy?”

  I blinked, coming out of my thoughts as Will said my name again. “A connection. Right.”

  “Who would want both Orphie and Beaulieu dead, and why?”

  The only thing that came to mind was the Maximilian book Orphie had taken.

  I glanced at the closed door to Orphie’s room, debating with myself. Did I tell them, or did I not? Someone had tried to kill Orphie. What if it had something to do with the book? I had to tell them. Her safety was more important than her secrets.

  “There is something,” I said, hoping it wouldn’t color their opinion of Orphie. Gavin seemed smitten, even if he’d only known Orphie for as long as it took to be thrown from a mechanical bull.

  Gavin folded his arms over his chest again and Will leaned against the hospital wall. “What is it, darlin’?” Will said.

  I gulped down my reservations and just blurted it out. “Orphie came here because she sto— uh, she’s in . . . possession . . . of one of Maximilian’s design books and . . . some of her designs were based on what’s in that book.”

  They stared at me as if I were crazy. Clearly they didn’t understand. I gave them a frame of reference. “It would be like plagiarism. Like if a writer stole someone else’s words and claimed he’d written them. Designs are personal. They’re the creative work—and property—of the designer. You can’t just steal them.”

  “Like Beaulieu was going to steal yours,” Gavin said.

  And maybe Midori’s. “Exactly.”

  “So if someone—like Beaulieu, for example,” Gavin said, his expression turning grim, “knew that she had the book and had used designs that weren’t hers, that would be a pretty decent motive.”

  I glared at him. That was not the takeaway from this story. “She came here because she feels guilty and needed my advice. She plans to mail the book back. Orphie is not a killer. And she’s lying in there right this very minute because someone tried to do the same thing to her.”

  “Which raises the question,” Will said. “Who would want to kill both Orphie and Beaulieu, and why?”

  Gavin’s jaw pulsed. He hesitated, finally saying, “You know her the best, Harlow. Could she have poisoned herself?”

  I balked. “Of course not!”

  He sighed, shaking his head. “Desperate people do crazy things, Harlow. You’ve seen that in action.”

  That was true. Since I’d been back in Bliss, I’d seen three murders, each committed by people desperate to hide the truth or protect some secret. Someone in Bliss was desperate right now to have killed Beaulieu and for attempting to kill Orphie. But there was no way I would believe she had done this to herself to redirect suspicion.

  “Someone did this to her,” I said, turning and pushing through the door and into the hospital room once again. I needed to ask her one question and to reassure myself that she was going to be okay.

  She looked fragile lying in the sterile bed. Her eyelids fluttered open as Will and Gavin filed in behind me. “Orphie,” I said, figuring it was best just to come right out with it. “Did Beaulieu know that you had Maximilian’s book?”

  Her fingers curled around the blanket, bunching the material in her fists. “Wh-what?”

  I cupped my hand over hers, looking her square in the eye. “Someone killed Beaulieu and tried to kill you. We need to figure out why.”

  “The book . . . ?”

  “He didn’t know, did he?” In a trial, that question probably would have garnered an objection, leading the witness from the prosecution, but I knew Gavin wanted Orphie to be innocent. He kept quiet.

  But instead of saying, Of course he didn’t know! Orphie pulled her hand away from mine and looked down at the crumpled blanket.

  My spine stiffened. “Orphie? He didn’t know, did he?”

  One of the men behind me shifted on his feet and I felt the tension in the air grow heavy.

  She nodded, lifting her gaze back to mine, peering at me through her muddy eyelashes. “He knew,” she said, her voice barely more than a whisper.

  My heart sank. I thought about the night she’d shown up on my porch, pounding on the door in the middle of the night. “Did you know he was going to be here? Is that why you came?” I asked, knowing the answer deep down.

  As her fingers worked the blanket, Gavin sidestepped around me and leaned down to whisper in her ear. Her hands stilled, and then relaxed. “H-he sent me an . . . an e-mail,” she said.

  She stopped and Gavin nodded to her.

  I glanced at Will, lifting my eyebrows in surprise. Gavin and Orphie. They had a connection.

  She cleared her throat and continued. “He didn’t know about the book, but he said he knew that I’d stolen Maximilian’s designs and he was going to tell everyone, there’d be a story about it in the newspaper, and I’d be ruined. Unless . . .” Her voice trembled with emotion. “Unless I agreed to pay him. He knew about us being roommates in Manhattan. He said he’d suggested having you as part of the magazine article, and he could pull the plug on that just as easily as he’d made it happen.”

  This time she did meet my gaze. “I couldn’t let him destroy your career over a stupid mistake I’d made.”

  “He stole ideas,” I said, trying to understand. “He tried to steal my designs. He had sketches of Midori’s designs. He was blackmailing you—”

  “He
has—had a reputation. He was somebody, and I’m nobody. I believed him, that he’d destroy any future I might have, and that he’d take you down, too. He knows—knew people. I couldn’t let that happen, so I agreed to meet him here.”

  “Why?” Gavin asked. “To what end? Were you going to pay him?”

  She nodded. “I was going to give him the book, b-but I couldn’t.”

  She looked down at her hands again, ashamed. “But he died before I could pay him.”

  Gavin notched his cowboy hat back and looked her straight in the eye. “I need to ask, sweetheart, and I need a straight answer.”

  She lowered her chin in one nod.

  “Did you kill Beaulieu?”

  “I’ve done some things I’m not proud of,” she said quietly, “but no, I didn’t kill him. I didn’t kill Beaulieu.”

  Chapter 24

  The big question suddenly front and center in my mind was whether or not someone else knew about the Maximilian book in Orphie’s possession. Was that why she’d been targeted? But that still didn’t answer the question of why Beaulieu had been killed.

  “My head hurts from thinking about this,” I told Will as we walked up the flagstone path in front of my house. We stopped short at the base of the porch steps. “That was closed when we left,” I whispered, seeing the door cracked open.

  “Yes, it was.”

  I searched the yard for a weapon, zeroing in on a trowel tucked under a geranium plant by the steps. I grabbed it with one hand and grabbed Will’s arm with my other hand, and together, we tiptoed into the house.

  I stopped short at the sight, my breath stalling in my chest. Most of what I owned appeared to be on the floor. My dress forms lay on their sides, the outfits that had been on them disheveled and askew—including Mama’s wedding dress. Magazines had been dumped from their rack, patterns were in a pile on the workroom table, and every cookbook from my collection was on the kitchen floor.