A Custom Fit Crime Read online

  Praise for the Magical Dressmaking Mystery Series

  A Fitting End

  “A fun family affair. . . . Fans will enjoy Harlow Jane’s amateur sleuthing with advice from her late great-grandma and the Texas posse.”

  —The Best Reviews

  “Bliss is a wonderfully Southern town, with all its charms and foibles, traditions and society. . . . This enchanting mystery with down-home charm is as comfortable as slipping into your favorite dress and sitting down and drinking sweet tea with engaging characters who quickly become old friends.”

  —The Mystery Reader

  “Harlow is a delight. . . . There’s something a bit magical about this series. Ms. Bourbon has taken a premise, characters, and a setting that may not have worked with anyone else at the keyboard, and created a fab-tastic series.”

  —Once Upon a Romance

  “A fun book, with the wide assortment of characters filling the page.”

  —Fresh Fiction

  “The perfect blend of dressmaking and intrigue.”

  —Sew Daily

  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!”

  —Hank Phillippi Ryan, Agatha, Anthony, and Macavity Award–winning author “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 Wall-to-Wall Dead

  “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 Close Knit Killer

  “As the daughter of a sewing teacher, I found the dressmaking tips at the end of the book to be completely true and helpful, and I found Harlow’s character to be compelling and relatable as a down-to-earth designer and seamstress.”

  —Fresh Fiction

  “Well done, Ms. Bourbon! You’ve created a well-designed and delightful set of characters in a ‘charm’ing setting with a one-of-a-kind premise.”

  —Once Upon a Romance

  Other Magical Dressmaking Mysteries

  Pleating for Mercy

  A Fitting End

  Deadly Patterns

  A Custom-Fit Crime

  A MAGICAL DRESSMAKING MYSTERY

  Melissa Bourbon

  OBSIDIAN

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  USA | Canada | UK | Ireland | Australia | New Zealand | India | South Africa | China Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England For more information about the Penguin Group visit penguin.com.

  First published by Obsidian, an imprint of New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  Copyright © Melissa Bourbon, 2013

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  OBSIDIAN and logo are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  ISBN 978-1-10160268-3

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

  Contents

  Praise

  Also by Melissa Bourbon

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Make Your Own Felt Beads

  Cassidy Family Tree

  Excerpt from A KILLING NOTION

  For Aunt Sarah, and for my own best friend, Marilyn.

  Acknowledgments

  A special thanks to Gretchen (Gertie) Hirsch and her blog, Gertie’s Blog for Better Sewing, to Ann Athey for inspiring Harlow’s rag quilt, to Diedre Johnson for introducing me to the story of Cynthia Ann Parker, to Carol Loo for inspiring me with her wool beads, and to Carolyn Klein Lagattuta and her spiderweb pictures.

  Chapter 1

  When I’d first returned home to Bliss, Texas, I thought my hometown would be just as peaceful as it was when I was a little girl. It was still sweet and Southern, sure, but lately death had found a way of creeping in between the seams, and too often, I’d been in the mix.

  In New York, a knock on the door in the middle of the night would have been enough to send my heart into a frenzied patter. But I was in Texas now, and a tap-tap-tap on the front door of my little yellow farmhouse with the redbrick trim wasn’t cause for alarm.

  “Meemaw?” I rolled to my side, my voice sleepy. My great-grandmother, Loretta Mae Cassidy, had passed on before I’d come back home, but I’d learned that the Cassidy women didn’t always cross right over to the other side. Not something that had filled me with joy when I’d found out.

  Meemaw hung around the farmhouse her daddy had built, trying to communicate with me. Or playing jokes, depending on how you looked at it.

  If Loretta Mae was tapping on the door downstairs, she wasn’t letting on. “Meemaw, I’m sleeping,” I murmured, but the sounds continued.

  And then, through my bleary eyes, I saw the red and gold curtains on either side of the window rustle followed by a louder tap-tap-tap from downstairs. If Meemaw was up here with me, then who . . .

  I lay still in my bed, listening for a repeat, wondering for a second if I had imagined the sound.

  But then it came again. Tap. Tap. Tap.

  I peered at the clock. Two a.m. Surely the Dallas fashion brigade, which was supposed to show up in the morning for part two of an interview and photo shoot, hadn’t arrived eight hours too early. I was suddenly wide awake, my
pulse zipping along like a sewing machine whose foot pedal was stuck. I jumped out of bed, stepped over Earl Grey, the sweet little potbelly pig Will Flores and his daughter, Gracie, had given me at Christmas, and padded, barefoot, across the cold wooden floor and out to the landing, stopping to listen.

  Tap. Tap. Tap.

  Mama wouldn’t knock. She’d just come on in. Same with Nana and Granddaddy, and they’d come in to the kitchen through the Dutch door off the back porch.

  It could be Will. We’d been dating for months now, and every day we grew closer and closer, but he didn’t just show up on my stoop in the middle of the night. He wasn’t that kind of man, and I wasn’t that kind of woman. Which led me to— “Oh no, Gracie?” She’d run here, to me, once before when she’d learned the truth about her mother leaving her when she was just a baby. We’d formed a close bond since I’d come back to Bliss, too, and I certainly didn’t want her out alone in the middle of the night.

  The sound at the door changed, becoming more of a scraping. It seemed to move off to the window. Surely it wasn’t Gracie, I reasoned, darting a quick look around for a weapon. Just in case. An antique sidebar stood against the wall in the landing, a decorative metal dress form on one side, a bowl filled with handmade felt beads on the other. I could pelt the intruder with the little round balls of wool, but that wouldn’t ward off whoever it was for very long. If at all. The magical Cassidy family charm wouldn’t help, either. I could make people’s wishes and dreams come true when I made clothing for them, but I couldn’t conjure up a spell to protect myself from strangers at my front door.

  With nothing but my wits, I descended the stairs. They were even colder against my bare feet, but I made it down, turned left into the part of the house that doubled as my shop, Buttons & Bows, and stooped to snatch up one of my red Frye harness cowboy boots. Not much in the way of defense, but better than felt beads, and definitely better than empty hands.

  The scraping turned back to a knocking and I had another thought. Nana’s goats! Maybe it wasn’t an intruder at all. Nana and Granddaddy’s property was directly behind mine, and Thelma Louise, the grand dam of Nana’s herd of dairy goats, managed to escape the farm more frequently than not. She was as mischievous as all get out, and she liked to pick on me.

  “Harlow?”

  I froze, my elbow bent, the boot cocked behind my head. Nana’s goats didn’t speak. Neither did Meemaw’s ghost, for that matter.

  With my ear up to the door, I held my breath and listened.

  “Harlow, are you there?”

  The voice was familiar. It was a woman. Low, as if she didn’t want anyone to hear her calling my name, which was silly since it was the middle of the night and she’d already wakened the entire neighborhood with her ruckus at my door.

  The doorknob jiggled and I jumped back. “Who’s there?”

  The doorknob jiggled again. “Harlow, it’s Orphie.”

  Orphie! I dropped the boot, turned the lock, and pulled open the door.

  Black, curly, shoulder-length hair. Tall and thin like a model. Bronzed skin. It really was Orphie Cates. “You’re early!” She wasn’t set to arrive for two more days. If I had to be rousted from my sleep in the middle of the night by anyone, Orphie would be in the top three on that list.

  I squealed, rushing onto the porch, wrapping her in a bear hug. “I can’t believe it! Orphie? Is it really you?” I pushed her back, stared at her, and then drew her in for another embrace. I hadn’t seen her in a year and a half, although we’d talked on the phone and had a constant stream of e-mails back and forth.

  “In the flesh,” she said after I finally let her go. A wry smile graced her perfect lips. We’d worked at Maximilian together, a top New York designer, but really, Orphie should have been on the runway. She was that beautiful.

  And she was right about the flesh part, too. The dress she wore had a low-cut scoop neck that draped at her cleavage. Two thin spaghetti straps went over her shoulders and crisscrossed in the back. The pattern had been cut on the bias and hung in silky waves over her body. It was her own design, I knew, utterly sexy, and absolutely out of place in a down-home town like Bliss.

  But Orphie was Orphie. She had style in spades and she wasn’t afraid to show it. I was the same way, but my style was a little less revealing.

  As she looked over my shoulder at the shop, I grabbed her by the wrist and yanked her into the house, shutting and locking the door behind her.

  “So, this is where the magic happens, eh?” she said, a playful grin on her face.

  That one little sentence made me gasp. Only a handful of people knew about the Cassidy charm. My family, of course, since they were all charmed, too. Madelyn Brighton, the town photographer and a good friend, and Will Flores, the man Meemaw had set me up with from the great beyond. His daughter was charmed, too, but didn’t know it yet. The little town was bursting at the seams with secrets.

  But Orphie didn’t know, and she wasn’t referring to my magic. She was talking about my dressmaking. “This is it,” I said, spreading my arms wide.

  She wandered around, looking at the antique armoire that held stacks of fabric, the custom designs hanging on a freestanding rack against the back wall, a bulletin board with favorite sketches pinned to it, oohing and aahing the whole time. Finally she made her way to the French doors dividing the front room of the shop and what had once been Meemaw’s dining room. I’d turned it into my workroom. Her gaze took in the cutting table that sat in the middle, a wooden pulley contraption for fancy gowns that was affixed to the ceiling thanks to Will’s handyman skills, Meemaw’s old Singer sewing machine and my PFAFF, my Baby Lock serger, dress forms, and a shelf unit with Mason jars of buttons, baskets filled with trim, and every other sewing supply I might need as I developed Cassidy Designs.

  “It’s really great, Harlow,” she said, stopping at my newest purchase, a commercial sewing machine. “And look at this!” She lovingly brushed her fingers over the top.

  “Business has been getting better,” I said. I’d made custom designs for a few of Bliss’s most prominent matrons, including Zinnia James, wife to a local senator. I’d worked on several festivals, including the local debutante pageant and ball, and the town’s holiday extravaganza. Word was getting around about my designs and how they made people feel.

  No one knew it was thanks to my ancestor Butch Cassidy wishing upon an Argentinian fountain. That magic charm had bestowed gifts on all of Butch’s female descendants—Loretta Mae was able to get whatever she wanted, Nana had turned into a goat whisperer, and my mother, Tessa Cassidy, had a thumb greener than the Jolly Green Giant’s.

  “And you’re sewing for your mother’s wedding now?” She looked around, searching for a wedding dress.

  The gown, if you could call it that, was on a dress form in the seating area of Buttons & Bows. It was anything but a typical wedding dress, but I was quite sure the design fit Mama to a tee. From the lace sleeves to the slight ruffle at the neckline, it was Southern sass that fit her age and temperament.

  “That, and I’m just finishing my fall collection for the feature in D Magazine.” I’d recently spent two days in the Dallas Design Center to meet with the journalist who was writing the article, and the two other designers who’d be featured. A day in an artsy showroom and another in the warehouse that housed an atelier had been exciting and new, but by the end of the trip, I missed my quaint little shop in my little yellow farmhouse.

  Now it was their turn to see how the other half lived . . . the half outside Dallas.

  Orphie went back to wandering the room, as if she were absorbing every last detail. “You said they’re coming here tomorrow for the photo shoot?”

  “Right. The journalist wants to see both sides of the fashion world. Designers in the Design District, and”—I spread my arms wide—“my little outfit here in Bliss. Tomorrow, the models and designers will come here and they’ll shoot pictures to showcase my so-called country sewing space. Big contrast to where the other
s work and live. I just hope they don’t make me seem all Green Acres compared to the new-money bling of Dallas.”

  “They won’t.” She trailed her hand across the cutting table, looking longingly at the length of fabric stretched out and ready to be cut first thing in the morning. “It’s about up-and-comers, right?”

  “Right.” I notched my thumbs toward myself, smiling. “And I’m one.”

  The exact words of the journalist who’d contacted me, Lindy Reece, were committed to memory. We’d like to do an article featuring Dallas-area fashion designers who offer a unique perspective in the industry, both in and out of their own workspaces. You’ll spend a few days in Dallas. The other designers will spend some time in Bliss. Your work has a distinct perspective that’s vastly different from what I normally see. It’s an aesthetic worth sharing with our readership. I’d like to feature you, Ms. Cassidy.

  My newest collection was entitled “Country Girl in the City” and I’d been working round the clock to flesh out the collection, finalize my lookbook, and make sure every piece had a cohesiveness, both in textiles and presentation, but also with my voice and what I brought to the fashion world. “Midori’s bringing her models—”

  Orphie gaped. “I love Midori! What she does with pattern and cut is amazing.”

  I did, too, and to have my designs featured next to hers made my skin prickle with nerves and excitement. The Japanese cultural influence she brought to her designs made her unique around these parts. I thought Midori’s perspective could steal the show, and I wanted my clothes to show well in comparison.

  “The third designer is Michel Ralph—”

  “Beaulieu,” she finished. “You mentioned that. He’s . . . interesting. His aesthetic is a little muddied.”

  Temperamental was a better word. He got plenty of play on fashion blogs and was plenty popular—if not well liked. “You know what they say.”

  “Yeah. He borrows from other designers,” she said, invisible quotations around the word “borrows.” “Wonder how true that is.” She collapsed onto the red velvet settee in the seating area of Buttons & Bows. “I can’t believe he ended up in Dallas.”