A Fitting End: A Magical Dressmaking Mystery (22 page)

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.

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 was 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.”

I spent the next five hours at the country club. Fern had given me Trudy’s moleskin journal for reference so I could help match dresses to the girls who were supposed to wear them. Inside were all Trudy’s scribbling, sketches, and notes about each and every Margaret gown for this year. Tomorrow morning, bright and early, I planned to go through the gowns, compare notes to the drawings, and use a stickpin to affix a small slip of paper with a girl’s name to her corresponding dress.

Josie would be there to help me. She’d called every girl on the list and summoned them back for a second go at the dress rehearsal. We would start first thing in the morning. The last things I needed to do were finish up the loose ends on Gracie’s dress and write her pedigree. Which meant calling Will and Gracie to have them meet me back at Buttons & Bows, with Gracie’s hair done up and ready to be photographed. The whole packet of photos and Margaret bios had to be off to the printer first thing in the morning for a rush job.

“Why did Mrs. James wait until the last second to print the pageant brochure,” Josie asked. I had the Lafayettes’ notebook under my arm and my purse over my
shoulder as I sucked on a bottle of water. The storm had blown through, the sky was blue, and the temperature had dropped by at least fifteen degrees. No more humidity. No more sticky skin. Now, if it would just hold until after the pageant… just twenty-four hours.

I’d asked myself the same question. “To accommodate last minute changes, I guess,” I said. Whatever the reason, I was just glad Gracie’s picture and write-up would make it into the booklet.

The town’s festivities had already begun. The streets just off the square were cordoned off in preparation for the parade. Bliss Park was buzzing with food vendors, stages set up for music performances, and games for kids. The activities were winding down for the night as dusk settled in, but by morning, the place would be one big party. The whole event would culminate with the pageant and ball at the country club on Saturday night.

A cold sweat dotted my forehead. And I’d thought the pressure of pulling off a wedding gown and three bridesmaids dresses in a short span of time was overwhelming. That paled in comparison to this. Three custom period gowns was a big deal, not to mention sprucing up and altering another gown.

Add Mrs. James’s tiered blue dress to the mix, and I’d been sewing my fingers to the bone. But most of my angst was coming from running the show. Mrs. James hadn’t called me or shown up at the country club since the deputy had sprung her from the jailhouse. It was up to me to make sure all the girls in the pageant, including those who’d be wearing Lafayette gowns, were taken care of, and that everything went off without a hitch. If Macon Vance wasn’t already dead, I would wonder if he
was working behind the scenes to sabotage the whole production.

Josie headed home to her husband, and I drove straight back to Buttons & Bows. As I pulled my truck up the long driveway on the left side of the house, I saw Madelyn Brighton sitting on one of the white rocking chairs on the porch. Her camera bag was on the little table beside her, but she peered through the viewfinder of her Canon, snapping pictures of something in the yard. My pulse skittered. The last time she’d taken pictures of my yard, she’d captured photographic evidence of Mama’s green thumb in action. First there were no flowers; then there was an abundance.

I threw the truck into
PARK
halfway up the driveway, cut the rumbling engine, and climbed out. “Whatcha doing?”

Madelyn swung her head in my direction, still looking through the viewfinder of her camera, and depressed her finger. “Just warming up.”

“Taking pictures isn’t like playing a game of soccer,” I said, opening the little side gate and picking my way through the thicket of bluebonnets.

“They’re not in season, you know.” Madelyn’s British accent made everything she said sound so sophisticated, especially compared to the typical Southern drawl ninety percent of Bliss residents had.

I looked down at the stems of bold indigo petals. “Mama’s been here.”

“Yes, she was. We had a nice chat before the sheriff whisked her off for a late dinner at Buffalo Joe’s.”

“The best barbeque in town.”

“You’re the third person who’s said that. I do believe we should try it.” She set her camera down and whipped
out her cell phone, slid the lock screen free with her thumb, and started typing on the touch pad with her thumbs.

“Are you texting Bill?” Madelyn had met Bill Brighton, a Texas native, at Oxford, but they’d moved back here when he’d taken a job at the University of North Texas.

She nodded. “He’s been working so many bloody hours,” she said, “but after I’m done photographing the pageant, we’re taking a week off together. We’d like to go to the Hill Country for a little getaway.”

“Wimberly,” I said immediately. It was the one place Mama used to take Red and me on vacation when we were kids. She didn’t like to venture far from Bliss, but Wimberly was close enough that we could go to Schlitterbahn, the water park in New Braunfels, see the River Walk and the Alamo in San Antonio, visit UT Austin, which we’d both ended up attending, and raft down the Brazos.

“Stay at Creekhaven Inn. It’s right on Cypress Creek and just a stone’s throw to the village square. You can walk, see the ancient cypress trees, visit the wine country. It’s perfect.”

She typed herself a note on her phone, tucking it into her pocket when she was finished. The next second she was back to pointing her camera and clicking. “You’d best keep your grandmother’s goats away,” she said, aiming her camera at the fence behind me.