But why would Anna Hughes have ripped out the pages? Unless…
Holy fried catfish. I stared at Fern. “Did Macon Vance… er… fertilize Anna Hughes’s garden, too?”
She rattled her head, nodding like I’d drilled deep and hit black gold. “You know he did. What comes around goes around, one way or another.”
“Trudy knew about it, and you think that’s why she was attacked?”
I thought Fern’s vigorous nod would knock the curl right out of her hair. “From my lips to God’s ear, as sure as the day is long, I know it.”
A nurse squeaked by in her whimsical lilac-patterned Dansko clogs and lavender scrubs. She stopped when she saw Fern. “Doctor’s coming by to see your sister, ma’am.”
Like a rusty bullet from an old Colt .45, Fern stood and followed the nurse to Trudy’s room on wobbly legs. She stopped at the door, holding the moleskin notebook out to me. “Do those fittings, Harlow. Knowing the pageant is going on’ll give Trudy strength.”
I took the notebook from her, tucking it back into my purse. I didn’t know what to do with Fern’s new information. Without the pages from the book, there was nothing to link Sandra to Macon Vance. Should I tell the deputy about it? But it was all hearsay, and I hated the idea of pointing the finger at someone else without more information. I’d already done it twice and guilt coiled in my stomach over it.
As I left the hospital and started up my old truck, I decided I had to wait. There was enough on my plate already. I’d left Mrs. James’s dress in a garment bag hooked to the knob on the dress form in my dining room. I’d left Mrs. James a message that I had a get-out-of-jail surprise for her, and to go on in to Buttons & Bows and pick up the outfit for the pageant. Josie and the Margaret gowns were waiting on me. Plus, Will had given me a look I just couldn’t decipher. The deputy was a thorn in my side. And Libby and Gracie didn’t know they were cousins. All this, plus a whole barrel full of family secrets—not the least of which was my own relation to Gracie Flores—had my mind spinning every which way.
I pushed it all aside, turning the truck toward the country club. Trudy may be in the hospital and Fern may think she was on the brink of death, but I’d seen a vision of her in a smart nautical polyester pantsuit. Trudy still had years left in her yet, and I was not going to let this be the year the Margaret pageant fell apart.
Chapter 35
Before long I was passing through the banquet room. Table after table was decked in white linen tablecloths, gold chargers at each place setting. No detail was left undone. A harried woman scurried past me, adjusting the vases of yellow roses at the center of each table while a man dressed in chef’s whites arranged chafing dishes on the long buffet table.
“What’s on the menu?” I asked as I patted the velvet curtain, looking for a way backstage.
The answer was gruff. “Barbecue.”
Enough said. Served on china, even barbecue was elevated to a new height. I finally found my way backstage and into the area we were using as a dressing room. The exact spot where Mrs. James and Macon Vance had argued, I realized, but I pushed that unpleasant thought out of my head.
Josie and I spent the next two hours going through every gown, scouring the pages of Trudy’s notebook, and matching which dress went with which person, affixing little slips of paper with the correct name to the corresponding dress. Along the way, I got the lowdown on the dress rehearsal, minus the dresses. Josie took a breath, and finished her story. “So I told Mr. and Mrs. Allen to be here at five o’clock to get into their Sam and Margaret Houston costumes. Neither one of them looked all that excited about it.”
Maybe because the father of Sandra’s child was dead and it had brought up old baggage between them? Did Steven Allen know who Libby’s father actually was? My heartbeat fluttered. What if he’d figured it out and had killed Macon in a fit of jealousy?
As far as murder scenarios went, I liked that one better than Sandra as the killer.
“Harlow?”
I snapped my attention back to Josie. “Sorry—what?”
She straightened as she put the last label on the Margaret dresses hanging from the third garment rack. “Mrs. James called a little while ago. She said she loves the dress, and thank you.”
“Good!” I couldn’t wait to see her in it, but more than that, I couldn’t wait to see if my charm worked and things were improving for her. As I closed Trudy’s notebook, I took a closer look at Josie. Her green eyes glowed. So did her skin, for that matter. She looked radiant. It was the only word I could use to describe her. I had a sudden image of her in a rayon and spandex maxi dress, the fabric stretched across the belly. I pressed my hand to my chest. “Oh my stars.”
She stopped, the hanger gripped in both hands, turning to look at me. “What? What’s wrong? Tell me!”
I gulped, swallowing the giggle that bubbled up my throat. “You know that fashion show at Christmas?”
She nodded. “Yeah.”
“Sugar,” I said, my Southern accent growing stronger, “you’re gonna be sportin’ somethin’ from the maternity line.”
She froze. “Wh-what?”
I’d expected her to jump up and down, throw out her arms and give me a hug, and ask me how I knew, to which I’d respond, “You’re glowing!” Instead, her smile inverted, frown lines formed between her eyebrows, and her shoulders slumped. “I can’t be. Not yet.”
“Josie?” I took the last gown from her arms.
Her eyes were glazed with tears, but she waved me away, saying, “That was silly. I’m f-fine. It’s just…”
I hung the dress up, careful to create space between it and the other garments. Crushed crinoline and petticoats would never do. “It’s just what?”
“Nate’s family… They’re all… all…”
She didn’t need to say another word. A lot of the Kincaid’s dirty laundry was still flying through Bliss, months after Josie’s bridesmaid was murdered. She was doing her best to rise above the muck and the gossip, but being part of a fallen family was no easy feat. “You and Nate are great together. You’ll be fantastic parents!”
She was a few inches shorter than me, so she tilted her gaze upward. “We were going to wait awhile. You know, until the dust settled.” Her face clouded, her eyebrows pulling together. She looked down at her flat belly. She definitely didn’t have a baby bump. Yet. “Wait a second. How do you know I’m pregnant?”
I shrugged. Nonchalant was the way to go. “Just a hunch.” But I’d never been more sure of anything in my life.
* * *
I’d thought the country club had been chaos earlier, but this… this was utter mayhem. Ushering a gaggle of teenage girls dressed in Victorian gowns to their places on the stage was harder than herding cattle. They clucked, milled around, moved from their spots, and tugged at the heavy sleeves or fanned out the petticoats and crinoline beneath their weighty skirts.
The curtain was drawn, blocking us all from the audience filing into the banquet room. Will Flores was out there, ready to watch his daughter become part of something he’d never imagined she would.
With Trudy’s book in hand, Josie and I had managed to get all eighteen of the Margarets into the right dresses. Now, Mama, Nana, and I, needles and threads in hand, busily inspected each and every one of them, turning the girls this way, then that way, checking for torn hems, gaping seams, or anything else amiss.
Finally, the chaos settled and like the calm before the storm, the Margarets and beaus grew quiet and fell into their places. Duane, dressed in his 1800s replica suit, stood back and practiced an imaginary golf swing as I knelt in front of Libby, slip-stitching the flapping hem of her dress. I watched her parents from the corner of my eye. If they’d been out of sorts earlier, they seemed over it now. They were already in their outfits, Sandra decked out in a silk burgundy gown, an off-white starched bonnet on the back half of her head, the three-inch ties done up under her chin. Steven looked smart in a tightly tailored coat and trousers, a wide cravat tied in a small, centered bow. His low-cut vest showed off the fine white shirt.