“I really have to get going,” I said, holding up the sketchbook I’d flung at him a few minutes ago. “Dresses to fit, and all that.”
He opened his door, but gave me a good long look before getting out. “Keep yourself outta trouble,” he said, one arm stretched out against the truck’s cab, the other holding the door.
I made myself smile. Meemaw always said you can catch more bees with honey than with vinegar. I felt full of the acidic stuff at the moment, but I made myself look sugar sweet. “I’m not a troublemaker, Deputy.”
“That’s not the way I remember it, Ms. Cassidy.”
As the words floated away from him, a niggling sensation settled in the pit of my stomach. I felt the heaviness of someone’s troubled stare. My gaze was pulled to the Flores house, and sure enough, there, rocking back on his heels, was Will. His mouth was drawn into a tight line.
Gavin McClaine tipped his hat at me before he ambled back to his SUV cruiser. Halfway there, he noticed Will and made the same cowboy gesture. Will notched his chin up in a noncommittal response, then turned his gaze to me as I rumbled out of the Hughes’s driveway, throwing my hand up in a wave, my mind scrambling to figure out who in the world could have killed Macon Vance.
Chapter 34
I’d come up blank on the investigative front. I had no new information. Nothing that was suddenly pointing me in the direction of the killer. I’d called Josie to check in, then made a quick stop by the hospital to see Trudy, but Fern met me at the door, stepping out before I could step in. “How’s she doing?” I asked.
“Resting,” she said. No pleasantries. No extra tidbits of information. Thinking Trudy could be guilty of killing Macon Vance made my stomach clench. Of course Fern couldn’t know what Anna Hughes had told me… could she?
“Will she be able to go home soon?”
Fern ignored my question, instead grabbing me by the elbow and steering me away from Trudy’s door. She spoke through her teeth. “You haven’t fitted the dresses?” It was an accusation, not a question, and I wondered who she’d heard that bit of information from.
Once again, Anna Hughes was the name that came to mind.
I waved my hand, pshawing. “We got a little off schedule, but I have the notebook and I’m headed back to the country club right now.” I patted the bag that hung from my side.
Her expression was dubious at best, so I pulled the moleskin book out of my bag. Before I had it all the way clear, she ripped it from my hands and flipped through it. I held my breath, knowing she’d discover the missing pages in just a matter of seconds.
Less, actually. Once again, like a bolt of lightning heading straight for a roof’s lightning rod, the book flopped open to the ripped pages. “What in heaven’s name—”
“I can explain,” I said, throwing up my hands, even though I had no idea why Anna had ripped out those particular pages of the book.
Slowly, she raised her eyes, leveling her gaze with mine. “Do you know what this means?” she said, her voice suddenly tinged with fear instead of the anger of a moment ago.
All I knew for sure was that I just wanted to go back to dressmaking and forget all the drama that seemed to be like starch in the fabric of my life. I’d had more dedicated sewing time when I worked for Maximilian, even if it hadn’t been my designs I’d sewn. But still, I knew it was better to be home, making my own creations, and creating a life for myself in my hometown than it would have been to stay in New York, nothing more than a minion.
Sure, this was the second murder I’d gotten wrapped up in, but I cared about the people of Bliss. I had a chance to help bring our blissful little town back to peace, and that’s something I never would have done in New York. Mama had joked that my gift wasn’t being a detective, but I wasn’t so sure solving little mysteries didn’t have something to do with the power my creations had.
Every trace of color had drained from Fern’s face, and she wobbled on her clunky, white leather lace-up shoes. Her elastic-waisted pants were twisted, the crotch seams angling to her right hip. I tried to guide her to a chair across the hall. “Do you need to sit down?”
She shook her head no, but then she shuffled to the chair, collapsing into it. Fern Lafayette had seen better days.
“Miss Lafayette?” I lay my hand on her shoulder. “Fern? Do you need a doctor?”
Her hand shot up, clenching mine in a death grip with her wrinkled hand. “I warned Trudy to keep her mouth shut, but she wouldn’t listen.” Her voice dropped lower and she darted a glance up and down the hallway. “It’s Sandra James.”
I started. “You mean Sandra Allen?” I asked, grimacing as I pried her hand from mine, clasping it in both of mine. “What about her?” I couldn’t infuse her with calmness, but I could offer her comfort.
She jabbed her heavy-knuckled index finger toward Trudy’s hospital door. “If only people would just be with who they’re supposed to be with. Trudy’s on death’s door because of her. Do you know what’s ripped out?”
I had mental whiplash as she went from true love to accusing Mrs. James’s daughter of attacking Trudy to the missing pages in the notebook. “I thought it was all notes about the Margaret dresses.”
“Well, of course it is,” she snapped in her Southern drawl. “Truth of the matter is, I’m sure there’s quite a bit missing now that you’ll have to figure out on your own, but I hear you’re good at that sort of thing. You do know the pageant is tonight? Don’t you let me or Trudy down by messing up our gowns.”
I blew out a heavy breath. “Yes, ma’am, I know it’s tonight, and I won’t mess anything up. We’ll get it done,” I reassured her. Even if it killed me. “I have help, and we’ve called the girls back early to make sure they’ll be the perfect Margarets. But…” I had to get to the bottom of what she was saying. “What was that about Sandra Allen?”
“It’s all there on the pages of the book.”
“What is?” I asked.
“The undeniable truth, that’s what.”
“Okay.” I waited for more. One person’s truth was another person’s lie, as Meemaw used to say.
She looked up and down the hallway again, then pulled on my arm, yanking me down until I was kneeling in front of her.
“It’s that woman,” she said. “Don’t get me wrong. Plenty of people fertilize flower beds they shouldn’t, and who am I to judge? That golfer spread his seed all over town. That Sandra should have seen it coming.” She shook her head, looking like she thought Sandra was the biggest dolt this side of the Brazos River. “After all, he did it with her, so why wouldn’t he do it to her? Trudy knew it. She just knew, and she started keeping track. Writing down when she’d see them sneaking around. That’s Trudy. She always keeps track of everything. From the time we were little, she’s fancied herself a spy. Keeping track of love and death and everything in between. They thought they were so sly. What comes around, goes around, Trudy says. Ain’t that the truth?”
Meemaw said the same thing. It was karma. You do good, and it’ll come back to you tenfold. You go messing with the natural order of things, and it’ll bite you in the behind every time. It was clear that Fern and Trudy thought people should fertilize only their own flower beds, and I had to agree. “She saw Sandra and Macon Vance sneaking around and she wrote it down?” No wonder Sandra had been so distraught, not wanting to go out after Macon’s murder. It wasn’t over her mother being arrested—or at least not entirely. If what Fern was saying was true, her lover had been murdered.