A Killing Notion: A Magical Dressmaking Mystery (5 page)

I’d gone to Bubba’s hoping to find something that would help Shane. Instead I’d come away with Bubba’s parting statement weighing heavily on my mind.
The way he fought with his old man, he might coulda snapped.

Three staccato blasts from a horn sounded behind me. I jerked out of my thoughts, glancing at the stoplight—still red—and then in the rearview mirror. Will’s truck was directly behind me at the light. He raised his hand in a wave, then pointed to the side of the road.

I pulled into the first parking lot I ran across. He rolled to a stop behind me, exiting his truck and ambling up to my door as if he’d pulled me over for a traffic violation.

“Fancy meeting you here, darlin’,” he said, leaning down to the open window, one side of his mouth lifting in a small grin.

I smiled right back. “Mr. Flores, are you followin’ me?”

“I’ll follow you wherever you wanna go.”

“What if I told you I was heading to Granbury,” I said,
batting my eyes coquettishly. “Would you still follow me?”

He tugged on the bill of his Longhorns ball cap, considering me. “I’d ask you what you were after in Granbury.”

“Ah, so you have conditions on your attention,” I said.

His grin widened. “Nope, no conditions, just curiosity.”

“Then it doesn’t matter what I’m after in Granbury,” I said. He knew I was looking into Mr. Montgomery’s death, but I had a niggling feeling he wasn’t fully on board with the idea.

“It only matters so I can decide if I should follow you”—he stood up and pointed his keys at his truck. It beeped twice in quick succession. He came around to Buttercup’s passenger side and got in—“or if I should just drive with you. But I figure you’re up to something. . . .”

I swung my body to face him, stifling my smile. “What makes you think I’m up to something?”

“If you weren’t, you’d be back at your shop sewing something.”

I started to object, but closed my mouth instead. He was right.

“Cassidy, you’re an open book. You’re heading to Granbury to see what you can dig up at Montgomery’s auto shop—am I right?”

My shoulders slumped. “That obvious, huh?”

He leaned toward me, his smile still in place. “Only to me,” and he kissed me, slow and tender. It was the kind of kiss Elvis would have sung a ballad about.

“So you’re coming with me?” I asked, my voice muffled against his mouth.

He smiled, his lips curling against mine. “So happens
I have some free time, so I guess I will.” He sat back as I started Buttercup, threw her into gear, and headed west.

It took forty minutes to get to Granbury on the one-lane country back roads. At one point an enormous truck bore down on me, laying on his horn until I was able to pull onto the dirt shoulder and let him pass. A short time later, a teenage driver passed a car coming the other direction, nearly plowing into me head-on. By the time we got to Granbury, my hands were shaking and my heart was in my throat. I could see Chris Montgomery wanting to stay off the roads and spend the night when he’d been really tired. Even if he wasn’t really tired. Texas back roads could be treacherous.

We took a few minutes to drive around the historic town square with its Old West picturesque shop facades and restaurants, and the courthouse smack in the center. It was just like Bliss, only bigger and a little bit grander. More tourists came to Granbury than to Bliss, and with good reason. The square oozed character, and from the looks of things, they hosted town celebrations more than they didn’t.

“The Bliss Historical Society wants us to become a mini Granbury,” Will said. He’d taken out his cell phone and was snapping pictures out the passenger window. “I came down here a few months back to look at the playhouse and the outdoor amphitheater.”

“Is Bliss getting a playhouse and amphitheater?” We didn’t have a movie theater, so somewhere local to see plays would be fun.

Will shrugged. “Anything’s possible. Just takes money.”

Like anything else. I had taken on the homecoming
mums to earn a little extra money just to make ends meet, and I was constantly thinking of what else I could do to keep Buttons & Bows afloat.

Will seemed to sense the thoughts flitting through my mind. He stretched his arm across the back of the seat and gave my shoulder a gentle squeeze. I smiled at him, relaxing in the comfortable silence between us. Neither one of us needed to fill it with idle chitchat, and once again I had to hand it to Meemaw for her matchmaking skills. What Loretta Mae wanted, Loretta Mae got. She’d wanted Will and me to be a couple, and darned if it hadn’t happened. But more than that, it was a good match, and I was grateful to my great-grandmother for knowing what I needed even before I did.

A few minutes later, we’d found the side street Bubba’s called home. Bedding flowers lined the walkway to the lobby door, and the parking lot and the repair bays were full of cars. Bubba’s Granbury location did a brisker business than its sister site in Bliss. It looked nicer. It was kept up. And I knew better than anyone how important first impressions were. My first impression of a person often sent a vision into my head, and more often than not, the outfit I pictured revealed something about the person, something I might not discover in any other way.

My first impression of Bubba’s in Bliss was that it catered to the town’s locals and old timers who’d been born and raised in Bliss. On the other hand, my first impression of the Granbury Bubba’s was that Suburban-driving moms were just as big a part of the clientele as the good ol’ boy network who spent their Saturday
afternoons at the barber shop. Flowers told a specific story, and the knock-out roses planted by the door and the beds packed with marigolds said that someone took the time to care for the landscape. Bubba’s in Bliss had no such flora love.

A bell dinged as we entered the lobby. Right away we were greeted by a thin man who stood behind the counter. His name patch read M
AC
. Curly brown hair framed his head and wispy ringlets dusted his sideburns. A gold chain hung at his neck, and I could picture him in a shirt with the collar gaping open. The chin dimple made him look a touch older than he probably was, but he still looked like he was fresh out of high school. He seemed vaguely familiar and I tried to place him, but if I’d met him before, my mind was blank. Aside from Gracie, her friends, and the kids who came into Buttons & Bows, I didn’t have much occasion to be around high school kids.

Maybe he just had one of those faces.

“What can I do for you?” Mac asked. His voice was thin and high, and I had an image of him wearing snakeskin boots and a charming grin when he wasn’t in his oil-stained coveralls.

Since Bubba from Bliss had already done the annual inspection, I said, “I’m due for an oil change.” Buttercup was going to be in tiptop shape by the time this investigation was over.

The young man grabbed a clipboard and pen and ambled out to the parking lot, Will and me on his heels. “No problems with it?” he asked as he wrote down the make and mileage.

“Not a one. Buttercup here is a peach of a truck.”

If he thought anything about my name for the old
Ford, he didn’t let on. “They made ’em sturdy back then,” he said. “We’re backed up today. I’ll need a good hour.”

I saw my opening and jumped. “I bet the loss of Mr. Montgomery has put y’all behind. So tragic.”

“Yeah, it has. I’m pretty new here. Never met the guy, but it knocked his partner off the grid. Mr. Blake’s taking it real hard.”

“Did he get his phone back?”

Mac stared at me, his brows knitting together. “Come again?”

“We were at Chris Montgomery’s funeral and his daughter found Mr. Blake’s cell phone,” Will said.

Mac’s lips parted and he dipped his chin. “That explains it. He’s missed his shifts and he hasn’t been answering our calls. Guess he can’t answer if he don’t have his phone.”

“Do you think he’s okay?” I asked. People handled grief in all kinds of ways. Seeing his friend die so tragically could be driving Mr. Blake to face his own mortality.

Mac’s eyebrows lifted uncertainly. “Like I said, he’s taking his friend’s death real hard.”

“Will, honey,” I said, taking Will’s arm. Talking to Chris Montgomery’s business partner suddenly seemed vitally important. I assumed that Chris Montgomery’s half of the business would probably go to Miss Reba, assuming she’d even want to keep it, but the day-to-day operations would likely fall to Mr. Blake. Maybe that’s what he’d wanted. Maybe he wasn’t grieving. Maybe guilt had him hiding out or on the lam.

I gave myself a mental head smack for my cynicism. I didn’t know the first thing about Eddy Blake, and even
less about how the two Bubba’s shops were run and how Blake might benefit from his friend’s death.

“I’m sure you all must be so worried,” I said. “We could go check on him.”

Will patted my hand and nodded to Mac. “Absolutely. Be happy to.”

Mac didn’t respond, instead turning and ambling back to the lobby. Will and I followed, an uncertain look passing between us. “How do we get the address?” I whispered.

Will shrugged. “We can always look in the phone book, or Google it.”

But it turned out we didn’t have to do either one. Mac pulled something up on the computer and a few seconds later he held out his hand for the truck key. “Be about an hour,” he said as I dropped it in his palm. “5309 Crescent Street.”

I blinked, registering the address.

He turned on his heel, tucking a pen he’d been using behind his ear and heading toward the door between the lobby and the garage bays. “Let me know if Mr. Blake’s okay,” he said over his shoulder. “We could sure use his help around here.”

“We sure will, Mac,” I said. “We sure will.”

*   *   *

True to his word, Mac finished up with Buttercup in an hour, and ten minutes later we stood at the front door of Mr. Blake’s trailer home in the center of a nice mobile home park on the east side of town. While Christopher Montgomery lived in a traditional Texas house made of redbrick, his partner’s house was far more modest. It was a nice mobile home, looking far more permanent than
temporary, with a small patch of grass, a shrub, and a few flowers in front.

“He has a thing for Mustangs,” Will commented, pointing to the left of the small house. Five cars were lined up in various states of repair. Clearly, a car to a mechanic was like fabric to a fashion designer.

“Here goes,” I said, raising my hand and rapping my knuckles against the door.

In seconds flat, the door yanked open. A woman stood there, her expression shifting from angry to relieved to disappointed, all before I could blink. “Yes?” she asked.

I stepped forward, holding out my hand, hoping I looked more confident than I felt. “Mrs. Blake? I’m Harlow Cassidy. This is Will Flores. I . . . we were just at Bubba’s, and Mac said he hadn’t seen Mr. Blake lately. We said we’d stop by—” I looked at Will to my left. “To see if he’s okay and if y’all need anything.”

Her expression changed again, slipping back to a veil of ire. She eyed my hand, but didn’t raise hers to shake. “I really can’t say if he’s okay,” she said, anger tingeing her voice. “I haven’t seen him in days.”

Not what I’d expected to hear. I dropped my arm back to my side and Will took up where I’d left off. “Sounds like he’s taking his partner’s death pretty hard.”

She didn’t respond to that, just dropped her gaze, her emotion shifting to a palpable worry. “He is. Harder than I expected.”

A red flag went up in my mind from that last sentence. Could Mrs. Blake have had something against Chris Montgomery that led her to kill him, not anticipating the
toll the death would take on her own husband? Anything was possible, and I certainly couldn’t discount the idea.

“I’m awfully sorry to hear that,” I said. “The accident was a shock.”

“I heard the car was tampered with and someone forced him off the road.” She shook her head as if she still couldn’t believe this had all actually happened.

“That’s what we heard, too. Something with the steering.”

She glanced at the row of cars. “I wouldn’t know a steering line from a water line,” she said, and I had to wonder if she’d said that to plant a seed about her vehicular ignorance.

“Me neither,” I said. “I just need to turn the key so a car will go. Nothing more.”

“Me, too. I know my way around a kitchen, and couldn’t care less about cars. But they’re Eddy’s passion.”

“As far as it goes,” Will said, “cars are a pretty good thing for a man to tinker with.”

“I guess,” Mrs. Blake said. “He’s a good man. He’s taking this hard, though. When we lost our daughter, he disappeared on me for a week. Couldn’t cope. Drove around looking for her, as if he could bring Sue back to us.”

“I’m sorry,” I started, but she waved away my sympathy.

“Chris’s death, it’s a tragedy, but Eddy’ll get past it. We’ll get through it together, just like we’ve done with everything. It’s what marriage is about, right? For better or worse.”

I looked over her shoulder trying to see the pictures framed on a small table to her right. A large photo of a
ginger-haired girl sat in the center spot, the rest of the smaller photos grouped around it. There was a family photo, the images too small to make out, and another of the girl in the driver’s seat of a gray, dull-looking car. It was Bondoed and primered, but from what I could see, a smile lit up the girl’s face.

Instinctively, I moved forward, but Mrs. Blake shifted, blocking my view. “I’m sorry, ma’am,” I said, both for the loss of her daughter and her grieving husband.

“Thank you.”

We stayed silent.
If you listen, people will talk,
Meemaw used to say. It was true. I’d learned to stand back and let people fill the silence. Mrs. Blake was no different from most other people I’d encountered. She continued. “He’ll be back,” she said, and I wondered if she was trying to convince herself as much as us. “He stays out a few nights a week, but that’s always for work. That business is all-consuming. I sure didn’t expect that when he took on a partner and opened another store. But if that makes him happy and it pays the bills, then I’m all for it.”