A Killing Notion: A Magical Dressmaking Mystery

PRAISE FOR

THE MAGICAL DRESSMAKING MYSTERY SERIES

A Custom-Fit Crime

“This challenging caper will have you guessing till the end and then stun you with another twist. The characters are all amusing and the added haunting of Meemaw makes it a real page-turner. Can’t wait for more from this author.”

—
Romantic Times

“As much humor, magic, and fashion as any reader could ever desire.”

—Kings River Life Magazine

Deadly Patterns

“As usual, Melissa Bourbon delivers a fun mystery full of intrigue and suspense.”

—Fresh Fiction

“An engaging, amusing paranormal amateur sleuth.”

—Genre Go Round Reviews

“Filled with familial bonds, small-town craziness, romance, fun, humor, and mystery,
Deadly Patterns
sets the bar high for a cozy mystery with more than a touch of the paranormal. This book is a great read for young and older alike and would provide you with a fabulous read to while away a winter’s day.”

—MyShelf.com

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
Home for the Homicide

“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

Also by Melissa Bourbon

Pleating for Mercy

Deadly Patterns

A Fitting End

A Custom-Fit Crime

OBSIDIAN

Published by the Penguin Group

Penguin Group (USA) LLC, 375 Hudson Street,

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A Penguin Random House Company

First published by Obsidian, an imprint of New American Library,

a division of Penguin Group (USA) LLC

First Printing, April 2014

Copyright © Melissa Ramirez, 2014

Excerpt from
Pleating for Mercy
copyright © Melissa Ramirez, 2011

Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

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ISBN 978-1-101-60274-4

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 recipes contained in this book are to be followed exactly as written. The publisher is not responsible for your specific health or allergy needs that may require medical supervision. The publisher is not responsible for any adverse reactions to the recipes contained in this book.

This book is dedicated to Debbie Johnson Stafford, because sometimes friends become family, and that’s you, Coco. ;)

Go big or go home.
That had to be the philosophy of the people who spearheaded the Texas homecoming mum tradition. Big flowers made of ribbon, with trinkets and more ribbon, and even the occasional cowbell, to be worn by girls across Texas during homecoming week, were a sign of status in most Lone Star State schools. The grander, the better. There was no other logical explanation, and at this particular moment, I wanted those homecoming boosters strung up by their toes.

“Everything’s bigger in Texas,” I said aloud to the three people in my shop. Earl Grey, my little teacup pig, snorted before going back to rooting his way into a mound of fabric scraps I’d yet to bag up.

Mrs. Zinnia James stood framed beneath the French doors that separated the front room of Buttons & Bows, my custom dressmaking shop, from my workroom. Danica Edwards stood on the fitting platform I’d pulled out next to the cutting table, a length of black tulle draped over one shoulder. She was fairly new to Bliss, and she’d
signed up to be part of the Helping Hands community outreach program, so along with a mum, I was also making her homecoming dress.

And so far, the visions I normally saw of people in outfits that would help them realize their wishes and dreams weren’t materializing. A black dress, even though it was a flirty, intricately silver-beaded embroidery number with a waist belt and a sheer illusion neckline and tulle underlay, felt far too serious for a seventeen-year-old. I’d have to go back to the drawing board for her.

My grandmother, Coleta Cassidy, stood next to the open window in the workroom, cooing at Thelma Louise, the grand dam of her goat herd. Her Cassidy charm as a goat whisperer served her well. Every woman in my family had a magical gift, thanks to the wish my great-great-great-grandfather Butch Cassidy, had made in an Argentinian fountain. Nana communicated with her goats. My mother had a powerful green thumb. And my gift had to do with dressmaking.

“All this . . .” Mrs. James waved one arm around at the mum paraphernalia, the right side of her top lip curling up. “It’s just absurd.”

She’d sprayed and teased her silver hair to within an inch of its life in a very Texas do. As she shook her head, not a strand of her hair even budged. I had to grin. She’d always had a heavy hand with her makeup and an affinity for Botox and fillers, but still, her papery skin revealed a map of blue veins.

She was the wife of Senator Jebediah James, which made her the quintessential Texas blue blood, and she’d fight her age until her dying breath. With both barrels blazing, I’d heard her say on more than one occasion.

Still, even with all her effort, the evidence of her years was there. Her skin pulled tautly over the hardscape of her cheeks and jawbones, but the indentation of fine lines curved around both sides of her mouth and her eyes.

She looked like a slightly odd, cloned version of herself, and I sometimes thought that if I squinted my eyes, I’d get a glimpse of the real Zinnia James. But then I’d blink and she’d have that frozen-in-time look she wore like a mask. It had been more than a year since I’d been back in Bliss, but I still hadn’t grown completely used to the mannequin look of my biggest fan, Mrs. James.

“It wasn’t always like this,” she remarked.

“No?” I peered at the mounds of ribbon heaped on the cutting table in the center of the room. I’d amassed yard upon yard upon yard of red, black, and white grosgrain, satin, organza, wire-edged, double ruffled, and ultrathin curly ribbon, all in the name of the homecoming mum. Some of the ribbon was emblazoned with the words
BLISS BRONCOS
,
CHEERLEADING
,
RODEO
,
FOOTBALL
, and other extracurricular activities our high school offered to their student body.

“Good heavens, no, not in our day,” Mrs. James said. “Isn’t that right, Coleta?”

My grandmother tugged her cap down as she shook her head, the two dancing goats that formed the logo of her Sundance Kids dairy farm doing a jig as she forced it back into place over her wavy hair. “Got that right.” She pointed at me as if it were my fault and she was setting me straight. “Your granddaddy gave me a
real
chrysanthemum.”

I flung the back of my hand to my forehead, letting
my mouth gape and my eyes widen. “What? No ribbons? No bows? No trinkets?” I said in my best Scarlett O’Hara drawl as I pointed to the pile of plastic adornments Bliss’s teens wanted hanging from their mums.

Thelma Louise wrenched her lower jaw to one side, baring her teeth at me. Apparently she didn’t like my sarcasm.

Nana lowered her chin. Neither did she. “That’s right, ladybug.” She waved her arm around. “None of this nonsense.”

“A few ribbons,” Mrs. James said.

“A few,” Nana agreed. “You can’t hardly count the three strands of ribbons we had back then to the million and one these girls wear today. Good Lord, I’ve heard people say they pay up to five hundred dollars for a mum. Five hundred dollars! That would buy a whole lot of grits and grain for my goats.”

“And they were pinned to the bodice like a corsage,” Mrs. James added, shaking her head. “Not like the mammoth mums today that need harnesses.”

Danica stood on the fitting platform, riveted by the discussion. Nana leaned against the windowsill, crossing one white-socked foot over the other. “There aren’t even any silk chrysanthemums on them anymore. Why they bother calling it a mum is a mystery.”

Mrs. James and my grandmother had grown up together in Bliss, and had spent forty-some-odd years in a feud that had only recently ended. Now they were thick as thieves, their distaste over the state of the homecoming mum apparently fueling their camaraderie. “Why in heaven’s name are you making them, anyway, Harlow?”

It was a good question, and one I’d wrestled with. The
bottom line was, I wasn’t going to
stop
the madness, so I’d decided that I might as well join it. “The girls want them. They’re going to buy them. If I don’t make them, they’ll get them from the mega craft store or the local florist. So why not me? With all the bad press the
Bliss Tribune
has laid at my doorstep after the
D Magazine
fiasco, I figured this might help turn things around.”

“Murder does have a way of putting a damper on business, I imagine,” Mrs. James said.

I spread my arms wide. “Which is why I’ve been doing a million and one Buttons and Bows do-it-yourself mum parties. It’s like Pampered Chef home parties, only with crafts.”

They all three stared at me. “So let me get this straight,” Nana said, her eyes sweeping the array of mum materials in the workroom. “You’ve been hauling all this stuff to people’s homes and helping them make their own mums?”

I pushed my glasses back into place, nodding. “That’s exactly right. I made some of the foundations ahead of time with the backings and the ribbon flowers over these polyurethane bases I have—they’ll support twenty or thirty pounds—”

Danica gasped, clasping her chest with both hands. The tulle dropped from her shoulder to the floor. “Is that how much they weigh?”

“Some are even more, and if you want the crown jewel—a double mum that sandwiches the body, front and back. I bought these dog harnesses to support the weight.”

She hopped down to retrieve her lost tulle, tossing it over her shoulder. “That’s crazy,” she said, gliding back
into place. “My mom never—” She stopped short, swallowing the grief that instantly seemed to bubble up. She hadn’t talked much about her mom, and whenever she mentioned her in passing, the hole inside her seemed to open wider.

“It is crazy,” I said. I hadn’t even attended the homecoming dance, let alone had a mum, so to hear the words “double mum” and “harness” coming from my mouth felt foreign and absurd. But business was business, Texas was Texas, and the craziness of the tradition notwithstanding, the crafting part of the project was fun.

Mrs. James patted me on the shoulder. “My dear, you never cease to amaze. You get tossed a bushel of lemons; you turn around and make lemon bars. Buttons and Bows will be just fine, you’ll see.”

Danica shifted around nervously. “But you . . . you’re making this for free,” she finally said, gesturing toward the morose black tulle.

Mrs. James moved her attention from me to Danica. “My darling,” she said, “Helping Hands is my special project. We have volunteers and the foundation pays for some services. Harlow’s just fine.

“So while I don’t adore the enormity of the mum, I do think every young woman should have a beautiful dress to wear to the homecoming dance. And if a girl wants a mum, she should have one.”

“I don’t have to have the mum—”

“Of course you’re having a mum,” I said. “We’re going to make it together as a group. Don’t you worry about a thing. Just think of yourself as Cinderella, and we’re your fairy godmothers.”

Mrs. James handed Danica an oversized notecard. “I need you to fill this out with your address, any dietary preferences, and such.”

Danica arched a brow in question.

“It’s for the Helping Hands brunch the day of the dance.”

Danica obliged, carefully writing the information and handing the card back to Mrs. James, and then stepping back onto the fitting platform.

Mrs. James tucked the card into her purse. “Thank you, darlin’. And thank you for letting me put a little more light in your life.”

Danica smiled shyly, gazing down at the platform and brushing back her black hair to reveal earbuds tucked in her ears. So she was like every other teenager, listening to her music twenty-four seven. I wondered what her natural hair color was. A lighter brown, judging from how pale her skin was, but she died it raven black, emphasizing her fair complexion. “I don’t know how to thank you.”

Mrs. James gave her hand a squeeze. “You just have fun at the dance and look gorgeous. That’s all the thanks I need.”

“And don’t turn into a pumpkin,” Nana added with a chortle.

Mrs. James and Nana ambled into the kitchen, leaving Danica and me alone with our dress design. I looked long and hard at her, from her straight black hair to her wide shoulders and hips, to the trim indentation of her waist. Rather than stick thin, she was curvy in a way that reminded me of Jessica Rabbit, but so far, whenever I’d
seen her, both here and at Villa Farina, the bakery where she worked part-time, her body was hidden under baggy tops and jackets.

“The black’s not going to work,” I said, tapping my finger against my lips. I was also making a dress for another Helping Hands girl, Leslie Downs. Hers, I already had clear in my mind. It had been easy: I’d looked at her and seen the exact dress, just like that.

It was a sapphire blue floor-sweeping semisheer tiered overlay with an explosion of confetti-colored sequin fabric as the main skirt and bodice. The strapless bandeau neckline, an A-line silhouette, a high-low hem, coming to the fingertips in front and sweeping the floor in back, would all set off her ebony skin beautifully. An updo for her hair, high-heeled black sandals, and she’d be a standout at the dance.

But Danica . . . She was a different story, and with her design, I was less confident. I’d had a vision of the short, flirty black dress I’d been planning, but it wasn’t quite right. Everything around me faded away as I looked at her. Her blue eyes and pale skin reminded me of Emma Stone, but her black hair, heavy black boots, and patterned black stockings paired with a lacy black skirt gave her a hard look. Mostly, though, there was an underlying sadness to her. Completely understandable, given the fact that she’d been in foster care and now, at nearly eighteen, was finishing high school and would be living on her own soon. Not the way most teenagers envisioned their lives turning out.

I pulled the tulle away from her and wound it up in a haphazard ball. “Danica, I want to play a little game with you.”

She took out her earbuds, turned off her music, and tucked it all away in her pocket, lifting her gaze and looking at me through her long, spidery eyelashes. “Okay?” she said, more like a question than acquiescence. “What kind of game?”

“Word association.”

She pulled her lips in thoughtfully until they disappeared. “Okay,” she said again. “Why?”

“I can’t quite get a picture in my head of the right dress.” Apparently my charm was failing me, but I couldn’t tell her that. “This will help me get to know you better. I’ll sketch tonight, and show you some ideas tomorrow. I want your input on this.”

She batted her eyelashes, whisking away the thin layer of moisture glazing her eyes. I wished I knew her background. Had her relationship with her parents been okay, or strained? What about her foster family? Had they wanted her? Shown her love?

More than ever, I wanted to give Danica a Cinderella night at the dance.

“Let’s give it a try,” I said.

She nodded as I fired off my first word. “Homecoming.”

“Parade,” she said. No hesitation. So she liked the festivities.

“Monday.”

“Day off.”

“Saturday.”

“Car shows.”

“Sunday.”

“Church.”

So far, so good. Her answers didn’t give me any insight to her psyche, but she was talking, so I was hopeful.

“Car.”

“My dad,” she said quietly. She wasn’t with her dad anymore, but that’s all I really knew. Now didn’t feel like the right time to push for more information, so I moved on.

“High school.”

“Torture.”

I left that one alone. “Mums.”

“Status.”

Danica’s perspective on school reflected her situation, namely that she was alone in the world. The next set of words that came to my mind were family, home, and vacation. Having her respond to them could give me more insight to her, but on the other hand, thinking about what she didn’t have could drive her deeper into herself. I waffled back and forth, but finally made up my mind. If I had cancer or my husband—if I had a husband—had cheated, I wouldn’t want my friends or the people I ran into to cower and pretend like my reality didn’t exist. My grandmother, Loretta Mae—and all the Cassidy women, for that matter—had taught me to face adversity head-on. No pussyfooting around.

I decided Danica deserved the same honesty.