A Custom Fit Crime

by Melissa Bourbon

  My heartbeat was frenzied, but I leaned my ear against the door, listening. The footsteps had stopped, but something scraped against the wood, and the door handle turned.

  My breath caught in my throat. “Meemaw!” I whispered with a sharp hiss. I wasn’t sure what she could do against an intruder, but surely between the two of us, we could fend off whoever was on the porch.

  The door handle twisted again against the lock. Three quick, heavy raps came next, and I jumped back. “Meemaw!” I whispered again, my heart in my throat.

  “Harlow! Open up.”

  I scooted to the side of the door, pulling the shade back to peer through the narrow window. Gavin stood there with his arm around Orphie.

  “What in tarnation . . . !” I threw open the door and stood back while Gavin steered Orphie inside. Glancing out toward the empty street eased my mind. The night was calm and quiet and no murderers seemed to be lurking in the dark.

  “I couldn’t stay another minute in that hospital,” Orphie said as Gavin helped her recline on the red velvet settee. Lounging on her side and with her black hair and drawn cheeks, she looked like Cleopatra.

  “But did the doctor give the okay?”

  Gavin spoke up. “He would have preferred her to spend the night, but I told him we’d keep a good eye on her. She needs rest, is all. Need anything, sweetheart?”

  She shook her head, smiling up at him.

  He sat on the love seat in the little sitting area, crossing one ankle over the opposite knee, his attention fully on her. These two were the epitome of love at first sight.

  We spent a few minutes making small talk, making sure she was comfortable, each of us tiptoeing around what had happened. Finally I couldn’t keep quiet about it a second longer. “Orphie, do you remember when everyone arrived here the other morning?”

  She had one arm tucked underneath her body as she reclined on her side. With her free hand, she brushed her black curls away from her face. “Yes, of course I do. I was a bundle of nerves getting ready to meet Beaulieu.”

  It was the perfect opening. “When he came in, do you remember if he had a coffee cup?” I didn’t think I’d imagined him having it, but I needed someone to corroborate what I’d seen.

  She closed her eyes, as if she were trying to bring the moment to the front of her memory. Finally she shook her head. “I don’t remember. I was getting my things together to take upstairs.”

  The sheer curtains rustled. Orphie jumped, straining to look over her shoulder. Gavin jerked, instantly on alert. “What the devil—?”

  Meemaw! I silently cursed her for showing herself so blatantly. I’d just called her, wanting her help when I’d thought the pounding on the door was an intruder, but everything was fine now. “Probably just Earl Grey. My little teacup pig,” I added when Gavin cocked an eyebrow up.

  “Look,” I said, drawing them back to Beaulieu and the missing coffee cup. “They stopped for coffee on their way from Dallas to Bliss. Any one of them could have put the poison in his coffee, right?”

  I picked up Mama’s wedding dress again, diving back into the beads and sequins adorning the dress. “But what do I have to do with any of it?” Orphie asked, her eyes wide as she looked at us both.

  That was another question none of us had an answer to. Gavin, looking like a younger version of his dad, sat quietly, tapping his fingers in a rhythmic pattern against his knee. I knew he was listening to every word, processing every idea, and I also knew his priority had become trying to figure out exactly why Orphie had been targeted.

  Chapter 29

  I slept fitfully, my mind spinning around the different threads that had been tangling up every part of my life, and the lives of those around me. I was no closer to figuring out what had really happened to Beaulieu and Orphie, and that, more than anything, made me feel as if I were wearing a bonnet full of bees.

  But morning was here. The sun shone through the slats of the blinds in my bedroom. A blanket of warmth, not uncomfortable from the early heat of the day, but cozy, eased around me like a layer of wool batting. I blinked away the foggy remnants of sleep, sitting up and rubbing my hands over my face. Today was the day. Tessa Cassidy and Hoss McClaine’s wedding day.

  “If Mama shows up,” I said to myself.

  I’d finished the last of the beading late into the night and dropped off Mama’s wedding dress around midnight. She hadn’t wanted me to come inside. “It’s late, ladybug. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  It was as good a promise as she could give that she’d show up at the church, so I’d left with a warning. “Will is picking you up at one o’clock, Mama. You best be ready to get hitched. Hoss’ll be waiting.” I had to have faith that she’d do what was good for her. Or at least what I was convinced was good for her.

  Orphie had slept in the guest room, but now she was back on the settee, reclining, while Nana and I spent the next three hours over at Seven Gables helping Raylene and Hattie set up the backyard. They’d put up two tents the day before, had had the tables and chairs delivered, and had set up twinkling lights and ornamental branches to decorate the space. “Those models talk too much,” Raylene said, stifling a yawn. “All night long. I thought they’d come to blows a few times.”

  “Quinton finally got them to simmer down.”

  “How’d he manage that?” I asked, grateful to not worry about Mama for a few minutes.

  “That camera of his. He started taking pictures of them. They had this competition going of strikin’ different kinds of poses, or somethin’ like that. Seemed pretty silly to me, but those girls ate it up. Made ’em a little teary-eyed.”

  “Why?”

  “Said it made ’em think of the guy that died. He always posed them in certain ways, and it brought up memories for ’em, or somethin’.” Raylene shrugged. “I don’t get it, really. Seventeen-year-old girls trying to look like they’re all worldly. Don’t they realize they’ll grow up soon enough?”

  “They’re losing their childhoods,” Hattie chimed in. “It’s a shame.”

  We worked in silence for a few minutes, blowing up helium balloons using the tank we’d rented, and tying the blue and silver metallic ovals to silver foil-wrapped baggies filled with sand.

  “Do you think she’ll show?” Nana asked as we placed the last of the balloons around the head tables.

  “I gave Will permission to drag her there if he needs to.”

  “Which he won’t do, honey.”

  “Probably not, but I told her yesterday that he’d do it, so maybe the threat will be enough.”

  She frowned, clearly not convinced. I felt the same way.

  “We’re all set,” Raylene said, standing back to take in the backyard. It had been transformed. Misters and several enormous fans were situated around the perimeter of the tents to keep the area cool. The weather was supposed to cooperate and be a comfortable, if warm, eighty-two degrees, but things could change on a dime in Texas. If the wedding happened, we were prepared. And if it didn’t, well, we could drown our sorrows in the misty tents.

  I headed back home. Orphie was ready for the wedding, but dozing on the settee. I tiptoed to the workroom. Will was stopping by before he went to pick up Mama, and Midori would be here any minute with my maid of honor dress. Which meant I had a few minutes to puzzle things out. From the back window, I could see that Thelma Louise, grand dam of Nana’s goat herd, had her chin resting on the fence that spanned between my grandparents’ property and mine. The goats seemed to be present whenever I needed to think seriously about things. I’d come to believe they were a good-luck sign.

  “I’m counting on you, Thelma Louise,” I said softly. I turned, nearly bumping into Will with a whomp!


  He caught me by the arms, keeping me upright.

  “You’re as quiet as a ghost,” I said.

  “As quiet as Loretta Mae?”

  I laughed. It was so nice to be able to talk to him about Meemaw. It was like having the weight of all the Cassidy family secrets lifted from my shoulders. I had nothing to hide from him.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  I paused, my hand cupped under my chin. “Just thinking.”

  “About?” he prompted.

  I didn’t have a definitive answer for that. “I’m not quite sure,” I said, my gaze traveling around the workroom. “There’s something—”

  My words froze in thin air as my gaze landed on the designers’ garment bags and Midori’s dresses, which hung from hooks on the wall by the French doors. Esmeralda’s and Barbi’s words about the hems being uneven and heavy came back to me. Hearing them talk about it when I’d first caught them trying on the clothes had stuck with me, but I couldn’t pinpoint why. The fact was, not every designer was also a capable seamstress. But Midori was the whole package. She was as well rounded as they came, excelling at all aspects of fashion, from draping and tailoring to project management and business savvy. It wasn’t easy to build a successful business, but she’d done it, and she’d done it well.

  “Shut the doors, please, Will,” I said over my shoulder, stepping back to get a full view of the dresses.

  Once the French doors were closed, Will came to my side, eyeing the dresses, a heavy frown on his face. “What do we see here?” he asked.

  I stood back, taking in every aspect from head to foot. “We see beautiful dresses.”

  “Yeah, I’d agree with that. So why are we staring at them?”

  My focus had trailed from the bodices with their buttons and frog closures to the hemlines. I tapped one of my hands against my thigh, thinking. If one of them had said something about the fit, I could have dismissed it. Two? That could still be chalked up to coincidence. But three . . . and four? That meant something else altogether. That meant there really was something wrong with the hems.

  Nothing that I could see with the naked eye, however.

  Something Lindy had said rose to the top of my consciousness, kind of like cream floating on top of a cup of cocoa. “Midori uses the same models all the time.”

  Will leaned back against the table, arms folded over his chest. “I thought the other guy did, too.”

  “Right, but Lindy mentioned something. I hadn’t paid any mind to it, but it’s interesting.”

  “What?”

  “Zoe and Madison.”

  “Cassidy, you’re going to have to spell it out ’cause I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “They’re old.”

  He stared at me as if goat antlers had sprung from my head. “What are they, in their late twenties? Early thirties? I have shirts older than that.”

  I tapped the toe of my pump, thinking. “Not old compared to you, me, or anyone else in the normal world, but old compared to other models. I look at Esmeralda and Barbi and they’re babies. They’re like Gracie—”

  “They are not like Gracie.”

  “Agewise, they’re like Gracie,” I amended. “Beyond twenty, if a model hasn’t made it, she probably won’t.”

  “So the designers want children to model their clothes.” He didn’t shake his head, but from his tone, he might as well have.

  “Unless they stay completely out of the sun, they’ll start getting wrinkles in their twenties. And then there’s gravity and skin elasticity and all that other stuff teenagers don’t have to worry about. Perfect bodies, perfect skin, perfect hair. It all starts being a little less perfect the older a woman gets.”

  This time he did shake his head, clearly mystified by the realities of the modeling industry. “That completely depends on your perspective,” he said, pulling me into an embrace. His hand slipped down to my hip and he drew me closer. “Curves and wrinkles, and whatever else life throws your way is perfectly fine with me.”

  I laughed. “You’re easy.”

  “No, just in love.”

  I lost my breath. He’d said it again. It was real.

  He continued on with the conversation rather than arguing the finer points of modeling, as if what he’d just said hadn’t been monumental. “So the Dallas models haven’t made it?”

  I gulped, getting control of the emotions flouncing through me. “Midori’s here in Dallas, not in New York, and she’s good, but she’s not like Stella McCartney or Donna Karan, so working for her steadily? No, they haven’t made it.”

  Examining another designer’s garments went against my nature, and until this moment, I hadn’t felt a need to, as curious as I was about what the models had said. But my instincts had kicked in and were telling me to take a closer look. I held my hand out, letting my fingers dance gingerly over the fabric of the first dress. I wasn’t Gracie, so no visions accosted me. No memories flooded my consciousness. No clues surfaced, as much as I wished they would.

  Will continued to watch as I lifted the first of Midori’s dresses off the hook, slipping the shoulders from the hanger. Having no clue what I was looking for, I simply ran my hand along the neckline, then down either side, and finally, draping the skirt over my arm, I felt along the hemline. The hem had to be almost two inches wide. Unusual, but another of Midori’s signature couture elements. While other designers made invisible hems, she made a point of incorporating the hem into the overall look of the garment.

  My hand stopped at a knot in the seam on one side. She’d used French seams, the finishing work on the dress impeccable. I flipped the seam so I could examine it. There was a gap, large enough for my index finger to fit in. Calling for a finger, actually. I obliged, digging mine into the hole and feeling around.

  “Did you find something?” Will asked, peering at the hemline of the dress I was digging into.

  I withdrew my finger and slipped the dress back on the hanger. “Not a thing.”

  “What are you looking for, Nancy?”

  I cocked one eyebrow upward at him. “Nancy Drew’s a little dated, don’t you think?” There were a million and one fictional female detectives who’d be a better comparison. “How about Brenda Leigh Johnson?” I quipped. “From The Closer?”

  “You can be whoever you want to be,” he said. “What are you looking for?”

  “I wish I knew. Midori was here when Beaulieu was murdered. She was with him on the road, so she could have put something into his coffee. Twice I heard the models say something about the fit of her clothes, and then there’s the fact that her models are so much older than the average.”

  He seemed riveted. Waiting expectantly. As if I’d make some deductions just as brilliant as Brenda Leigh Johnson’s and would suddenly reveal just who the guilty party was. Kyra Sedgwick made it look so easy.

  If only.

  “I keep coming back to why,” I said. “Why would her clothes fit wrong? Why would she choose to work with older models?”

  “Any answers?” he asked, his expression turning skeptical. Figuring out some elusive answers to a murder via a few custom-fit dresses did seem far-fetched.

  I folded my arms, tapping the fingers of one hand in a steady rhythm against my forearm. “Nothing. Not a darn one.”

  I checked the clock again. Midori was going to be here in fifteen minutes, and then it would be time to get ready for the wedding. I turned ba
ck to the dresses, wondering what I was missing but stopping short when the bells on the front jingled faintly, barely audible from behind the closed French doors. I held my breath, but it wasn’t Midori. Gracie came in, framed in the threshold of the door. Zinnia James was right behind her.

  “For heaven’s sake, Harlow Jane, hadn’t you best get ready for the wedding?” Mrs. James said, Southernness dripping from her words like honey.

  “Yes, ma’am. I will be in just a few minutes.”

  Mrs. James’s iron gray hair was pulled back in a sophisticated do, and her tailored outfit conveyed just the right combination of power and grace. I’d made plenty of outfits for her over the past year, and I was quite sure that she’d realize all of her dreams throughout the next decade as a result.

  “I found Gracie glued to the rocking chair on the porch,” she said. “She won’t hardly say a word to me.” The look she gave Will could have been construed as a silent chastisement for raising such an impolite daughter, but the truth was that Zinnia James adored both Gracie and Will Flores and ushering her into the house was her way of showing concern.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked Gracie, noticing right off the bat that she wasn’t wearing the sweetheart dress Jeanette and I had made for her. Instead she had on a plain eyelet sleeveless blouse and a flouncy off-the-rack skirt. The sweetheart dress appeared to be folded up in a plastic grocery bag, the top of the bag twisted and clutched in Gracie’s hand.

  She held out the plastic bag, her arm trembling. “I—I can’t wear this. Too m-many—”

  She broke off, enough wherewithal about her to sneak a look at Mrs. James.

  “It’s okay,” I said. The circle of people who knew about the Cassidy charms was growing. It included Zinnia James, an old friend of my grandmother and related, directly and in a roundabout way, to the line of charmed girls herself. Bliss was like a soap opera, complete with relationship twists and turns to rival the TV show Dallas. And then some. I needed a family tree printed out just to keep all the little offshoots straight in my head.