A Fitting End: A Magical Dressmaking Mystery amdm-2 Read online

  A Fitting End: A Magical Dressmaking Mystery

  ( A Magical Dressmaking Mystery - 2 )

  Melissa Bourbon

  Business is booming at Harlow Jane Cassidy's custom dressmaking boutique-even with her great-grandmother's ghost hanging around the shop. But when a local golf pro is found stabbed with dressmaking shears, the new town deputy suspects Harlow. Now she has to clear her name before the next outfit she designs is a prison jumpsuit...

  Praise for

  Pleating for Mercy

  “Enchanting! Prepare to be spellbound from page one by this well-written and deftly plotted cozy. It’s charming, clever, and completely captivating! Fantasy, fashion, and foul play—all sewn together by a wise and witty heroine you’ll instantly want as a best friend. Loved it!”

  —Agatha, Anthony, and Macavity award–winning

  author Hank Phillippi Ryan

  “Melissa Bourbon’s new series will keep you on pins and needles.”

  —Mary Kennedy, author of the Talk Radio Mysteries

  “Cozy couture! Harlow Jane Cassidy is a tailor-made amateur sleuth. Bourbon stitches together a seamless mystery, adorned with magic, whimsy, and small-town Texas charm.”

  —Wendy Lyn Watson, author of the

  Mystery à la Mode series

  “A seamless blend of mystery, magic, and dressmaking, with a cast of masterfully tailored characters you’ll want to visit again and again.”

  —Jennie Bentley, national bestselling author of

  Mortar and Murder

  “A crime-solving ghost and magical charms from the past make Pleating for Mercy a sure winner! The Cassidy women are naturally drawn to mystery and mischief. You’ll love meeting them!”

  —Maggie Sefton, national bestselling author of

  Unraveled

  Also by Melissa Bourbon

  Pleating for Mercy

  A Fitting

  End

  A MAGICAL DRESSMAKING MYSTERY

  Melissa Bourbon

  Copyright © Melissa Ramirez, 2012

  All rights reserved

  For Sophie…

  and Kym Roberts

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Much thanks to my critique group, where I am mostly MIA: my pal, Kym Roberts, Tracy Ward, Beatriz Terrazas, Jill Wilson, Kim Quinton, Mary Malcolm, Marty Tidwell, Wendy Lyn Watson, and Jessica Davidson. Cheers to October at the Lake House! To Kerry Donovan, Jesse Feldman, the artists, and the amazing team at NAL for making this book better. To Holly, for your continued support. And for my family… because of everything.

  Chapter 1

  Every small town has its traditions. Bliss, Texas, is no exception. We have your typical holiday parades and summer concerts, sure. But the big deal on the annual town calendar in Bliss is the Margaret Moffette Lea Pageant and Ball. Or the Margaret Festival, as the locals call it. The event used to be one of the dividing lines between the haves and the have-nots in our small town. If you weren’t a Margaret, you were a have-not.

  I was never a Margaret.

  Which meant it was a funny twist of fate that I’d been hired to make dresses for a few of this year’s debutantes.

  I was back in my hometown after being away for more than fifteen years. I’d inherited my great-grandmother’s house on Mockingbird Lane and had turned the front section into Buttons & Bows, my custom dressmaking boutique. My great-grandmother’s spirit was alive and well and keeping me company, although effective communication with her was a might dicey and difficult. The best thing, though, was that after years of thinking the Cassidy family legend (a charm bestowed upon the women in my family by our ancestor Butch Cassidy’s wish upon an Argentinean fountain long ago) had skipped over me, I now knew that it hadn’t.

  I had magical dressmaking abilities.

  Which meant that when I created dresses for people, their wishes and dreams, both good and bad, came true. Unfortunately, my charm was relatively new to me and didn’t manifest on command. I needed a needle, thread, and a real sense of who a person was before it seemed to work.

  “That’s not a stage,” I said, pushing my square-framed glasses up on the bridge of my nose and staring in dismay at the raised wooden walkway running through the center of the Bliss Country Club’s event room. “That’s a catwalk.”

  “And it’s a big one.” Josie Kincaid, née Sandoval, stood next to me. We both frowned at the four-foot-wide, twenty-eight-foot long, five-foot-tall T-shaped monstrosity. As a former New York fashion designer, I knew my catwalks, and this one was the granddaddy of all runways. It was lit with summer runway splendor. Floor lights were already installed along the edges, while bright intelligent stage lights stood like sentries to the gray carpeted platform. Mrs. Zinnia James, chair of this year’s pageant, had clearly spared no expense. She’d just directed her dollars in the wrong direction.

  A charge of mischievousness shot through me. I looked at Josie. She looked at me, a glimmer in her eyes. And without a single word, we both scurried to the steps leading up to the stage. I dropped my sewing bag, and with one more look at each other, followed by determined nods in unison, we sashayed down the wooden runway, sucking in our cheeks, pouting our lips, and swinging our hips the way any model worth her salt would do.

  At the end, we stopped to pose. “Oo-la-la.” Josie gave a little hip wiggle before sashaying back down the runway. “The room’s nice,” she tossed over her shoulder.

  “Yeah, it is.” Celebrating Sam Houston’s presidency of the Republic of Texas was an annual monthlong event, culminating in the debutante ball that would take place in this very room. Bliss’s finest families, all primed and dressed to the nines, would watch their daughters make their formal entrance into polite society.

  “You’re a natural,” I said, following her back down the catwalk. “You sure you were never a Margaret?” Of course I knew Josie had never participated. Neither one of us had the pedigree. Josie came from a working-class, immigrant mother, and I was descended from an outlaw. Not quite debutante material.

  “Positive,” she said. “But my daughter, if I ever have one? She’ll be a Margaret.” She whirled around and wagged a finger at me. “Which reminds me. I want you to pencil that in. Little baby girl Kincaid. Margaret dress. Date unknown, but whenever she’s sixteen, I want you making her dress. Deal?”

  I eyed her stomach. Josie was shorter than me and curvy in all the right places, but I didn’t detect even the slightest bit of a baby bump. “Josie, you’re not—?”

  She waved away the very idea. “Not yet. Give a girl a chance to be married for a few months, would you?”

  I laughed. “Take all the time you need. Rest assured, baby girl Kincaid, sixteen plus years from now, will have a gorgeous Margaret gown handmade and hand-beaded by Harlow Cassidy.”

  I’d been commissioned to make three dresses this year—at a cost of nearly fifteen thousand dollars each and with a nice profit built in—including one for Zinnia James’s granddaughter, Libby. The wealthy residents of Bliss spared no expense for their daughters’ pageant gowns. The first two dresses were done, and I was thrilled with how they’d turned out, but I was struggling with Libby’s.

  And being summoned to the club by Mrs. James was interfering with my precious sewing time… time I couldn’t afford to squander.

  “Right,” Josie scoffed. “You’ll be so famous for your couture clothing that my poor baby girl’s gonna have to get her dress made by one of the Lafayette sisters. They’re old now. In sixteen years, they’ll be ancient.”

  I didn’t want to be famous. Able to make a comfortable living doing what I loved—that was my goal. “They still look go
od, but sixteen years is a long time. I’ll save the date for your not-yet-conceived daughter.”

  “Good,” she said with a satisfied nod, twirling around and curtsying for the empty banquet room. “Now, what do you think the senator’s wife wants to talk to you about?”

  “I was just wondering the same thing.” It was freaky how Josie could read my mind sometimes. We’d reconnected only a few months ago, just before her wedding to the town’s most eligible bachelor, Nate Kincaid. Her sparkly personality and infectious smile had helped her win Nate’s heart; plus she had breathed new life into Seed-n-Bead, the shop she now owned on the town square. It had also made her my confidant since I’d moved back to Bliss. I’d never really had a best friend, but Josie—and Madelyn Brighton, the catch-all photographer for Bliss and a connoisseur of all things supernatural—was pretty close. “And I have no idea. It was all very clandestine. The note was in my mailbox. No stamp, so she hand delivered it.”

  “Aha,” Josie said, wagging her index finger at me. “She had someone else deliver a note to you. She is the type to have other people do her bidding. So basically, you’re her lackey.”

  “I’m not her lackey,” I said. But actually, the thought had occurred to me. “Mrs. James loves Buttons and Bows. She comes in all the time, for the smallest little thing. She brought me a special piece of silk ribbon a few days ago. Said it had been her grandmother’s hair ribbon and she wanted me to somehow use it on Libby’s dress.”

  “Oh, like something borrowed, something blue.”

  “Exactly.”

  She glanced at my brown and white Dena Rooney-Berg bag sitting back on the stage. You could just see the orange handles of my Fiskars poking out through the open zipper. “Does she want you to do a fitting, or something?”

  “No, I did an alteration job over in Glen Rose.” I pushed my glasses onto the top of my head and added, “A fashion emergency. The woman is part of a skit at her family reunion tonight, and the dress didn’t fit.”

  “I might need some alterations on my clothes, too, if I don’t quit eating all the pastries from Villa Farina,” Josie said, patting her behind.

  I laughed as I maneuvered myself off the runway. I changed the subject. “Did I tell you that Mrs. James and my grandmother were friends when they were kids and that they actually fought over my grandfather?”

  She gaped at me—a full-on chin drop that left her mouth wide open. “No, really? Like in a if Mrs. James had won his heart instead of Coleta, you wouldn’t have been born kind of way?”

  As I nodded, a noise from behind caught my attention. I turned just as a black, square box sitting on a card table softly whirred to life. The cord snaked down from the machine and attached to a heavy orange extension cord that disappeared behind the newly installed black ceiling-to-floor curtains.

  The mechanism of the machine, visible through a wide cutout, held something yellow. It began a slow rotation and—

  “Bubbles!” Josie giggled, reaching up to catch one in the palm of her hand when they drifted our way.

  Muffled footsteps came from backstage, growing louder as the bubble machine settled into maximum output, letting out a silent stream of glistening soap spheres.

  Suddenly a man’s voice, curt and tinged with judgment, carried out to us. “It’s a might early for that, isn’t it?”

  There was a surprised gasp, then a woman said, “I believe in being prepared.”

  “That’s Mrs. James,” I whispered to Josie. The senator’s wife had a commanding and easily recognizable voice. She was all business, in a Southern lady kind of way.

  “I thought it was a pageant, not a monkey show.”

  I would have said fashion show, but I’d thought the very same thing. The catwalk was all wrong for the event. There would be a pageant, during which Mr. and Mrs. Allen, Mrs. James’s daughter and son-in-law, would play the esteemed roles of Sam Houston and Margaret Moffette Lea. The society girls and their beaus would be escorted out, and they would all perform several elaborate and authentic dances for the audience. “We need the stage, but not the runway,” I said to Josie. “But,” I added, “they could use this catwalk for the winter fashion show. Mrs. James mentioned her plans to me a while back.” I kept my voice low. “A winter wonderland theme featuring the women of Bliss. She wants me to be in charge of it. This exact catwalk will be perfect for that.”

  Josie’s olive complexion sparkled, suddenly lit up from inside. “A fashion show? That sounds divine! Can I be in it?”

  “Shhh!” I held my finger to my lips, flicking my gaze backstage. Even though Josie and I had been here first and I’d been summoned, I suddenly felt like we were intruding on a private conversation. “You’re married to the former most eligible bachelor in town,” I whispered. “Heck, in all of Hood County. I’m sure you’ll be the main attraction.” Even without the gold band on her ring finger and Nate Kincaid on her arm, Josie was a picture of loveliness. She glowed. I liked to think it was the magic I’d sewn into the seams of the wedding gown I’d made for her, or the dreams I’d infused as I painstakingly looped each thread through each individual bead.

  “Why are you here?”

  I jerked at the harshness in Mrs. James’s voice, whipping around to face her. But she wasn’t talking to us. She was still hidden behind the velvet curtains.

  “She’s talking to him,” Josie said under her breath.

  Now I really didn’t want to be here. My heart slid from my throat back down to its proper position and I was about to tell Josie we should skedaddle, but the man’s voice shot out again. “I’ve been waiting,” he said. “Unless you don’t want this thing to go on as planned.”

  Mrs. James scoffed. “Oh, it’s happening, whether you approve or not. Now, you may leave.”

  There was a heavy pause. Josie and I looked at each other, both of us with raised eyebrows and pinched lips. They sounded madder than a barrel of trapped water moccasins.

  Finally, he spoke again. “Sam Houston was married three times—is that somethin’ to be proud of? Do you really want these girls to be someone’s third wife? Children should be raised by their parents. That’s what we should be modelin’, not this… this… this.”

  “Isn’t that calling the kettle black,” Mrs. James snapped. “If you believed that, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

  I told myself that eavesdropping was bad, but I was riveted. Pageants, big hair, and a love of Sam Houston were practically Texas requirements, but this guy didn’t buy into it.

  “You’ve been here long enough to know that we are presenting Bliss’s daughters to society. These girls, sir,” Mrs. James intoned haughtily, “go through an arduous year of preparation for an upper-class lifestyle. They receive an education in etiquette, good manners, and bearing. They’ve attended rounds of parties and afternoon teas that began last September. A truly prepared Margaret knows how to greet and introduce people, knows the importance of writing proper invitations and thank-you notes, and will be able to host with poise, manners, and social grace, something every man wants for his daughter or his wife. Wouldn’t you agree—”

  He snorted, cutting Mrs. James off again; he was clearly lacking in social grace. “I’m talkin’ ’bout girls who don’t have the right pedigree. What about them, hmm?” I imagined him making air quotes as he said this. “They’re just shit outta luck. A little elitist, don’t you think?”

  Mrs. James cleared her throat, likely swallowing down her desire to slap the man for his impudence and his language. “That is not your concern.”

  “Oh, but it is. All the poor girls who can’t afford the price tag—”

  “The pageant is for everyone, not just those girls who are being presented. It’s our town’s show of patriotism. It stems,” she said more forcefully, “from our love of God and country. We have a scholarship fund, you know. Why must you make a fuss?” she hissed.

  The man sneered, “It’s not about patriotism. It’s for show, and it’s all a lie. All of it,” he repea
ted. He said something else, but we couldn’t quite hear.

  “Over my dead body,” Mrs. James asserted, but the next thing out of her mouth was calm and controlled. “Our pageant sets the tone of social life that filters down and elevates the whole of Bliss. You will not spoil it, and you will not get what you want.”

  “Wanna bet?”

  “Enough, sir.” There wasn’t a bit of compromise in Mrs. James’s voice. “It’s quite a good thing you don’t have a daughter, don’t you think?”

  “Harsh,” Josie whispered.

  “Yeah,” I whispered back.

  He spoke with slow deliberation, grinding out his words. “If I did, would she be welcome here?”

  He was like Cesar Chavez, representing the little guy, the people with no voice. I liked Mrs. James, but I totally saw his side of things. I wished I could drag him outside, tell him that my family did go back five generations in Bliss, but that hadn’t made me want to participate in the pageant and I’d turned out just fine. Better than fine, in fact.

  “You have no right to be here. You cannot come in here and tell me how to run this pageant,” Mrs. James said. “The Margaret Society works on this event all year long. It runs like clockwork, and nothing will stop it from happening. Not you. Not anything. The Lafayette sisters have devoted their lives to it, for heaven’s sake. It’s a tradition—”

  “I work here. I have every right to be here. This pageant and ball”—he said it like he could barely stand to utter the words—“is a circus. Do you make them do tricks and show their teeth and the bottom of their shoes?”

  “You’re just the golf pro,” she said, her voice dripping with disdain. “That hardly qualifies you to comment on our tradition.”