A Seamless Murder (16 page)

Coco threw up her hands. “It’s possible. I’ve always liked Anson, and let me tell you, I have a no-good ex-husband. It was a low time in my life, to be sure, but would I trade it? Heavens, no. If I did, I wouldn’t have my children, and I wouldn’t be as strong as I am. Because I
am
strong. I
had
to survive—for my kids, even when I just wanted to give up. It was three of them against one of me, and let me tell you, there were plenty of times I wanted to raise a white flag and just say,
I quit. You win
.

“But of course I didn’t do that. I
couldn’t
do that because I was all they had, and they were all I had. They are the best things that ever happened to me, and I wouldn’t change all the horrible times for anything if it meant I’d have to give them up. Now I have the best husband in the world, I have them, and let me tell you, I know Delta would be saying the very same thing about Anson and her and Megan. She would have done it all again if it meant she’d have her daughter. So they may have had problems. What marriage doesn’t? But I can’t see her giving up on it.”

Coco’s story brought my own father to mind. Mama had been crushed after my daddy, Tristan Walker, left her. He found out about our magical charms and had turned tail and run, never looking back. But Mama couldn’t give in to her
sorrow. She couldn’t lie down and give up. She had Red and me to worry about. And as hard as those days had been on her, I knew she wouldn’t change it for the world. She’d raised us well, and now she had Hoss. Things were as they were meant to be.

“Have you talked to Anson?” I asked.

“Not since the memorial, and not much during it, in fact. He’s a man of few words, anyway. Now, with his grief, he’s mostly silent.”

A car drove by outside. I glanced through the front window in time to see a Jeep Wrangler roll past, stopping in front of Jessie Pearl’s house. “Speak of the devil,” I said, cracking the front door open wide enough to take a closer look. “I’m going to go talk to him,” I said, suddenly making up my mind. I knew Hoss and Gavin had to have already spoken to him, but maybe I could get something from him.

“I’ll stay here,” Coco said. She sat down on the loveseat, one elbow resting on the armrest, and planted her feet on the ground.

“Are you sure?” I asked, but I was glad. Coco was a presence to be reckoned with, and at the moment, I thought I’d do better talking to Anson Mobley on my own.

She waved me on. “One hundred percent.”

I looked around, quickly coming up with an excuse to go next door. The mail was stacked in the center of the dining room table. Under the bills were three or four catalogs. One, I knew, was home and garden décor. I snatched the catalog, thumbing through it. In a series of pictures at the end of the publication, a yard done up with twinkle lights and lanterns was showcased. It was an awful lot like what Todd had
described for the dinner party. This would do as a pretense for stopping by.

“I’ll be back,” I said to Coco as I hurried out the front door, down the porch steps, and out to the sidewalk. I was just in time. Anson Mobley came out the front door, a suitcase in one hand, a duffle bag in the other, and a deep frown on his face.

I slowed my pace, stalling until he got to the curb, and then as he approached his Jeep, I sped up and plowed right into him. “Oh!”

“Watch it!” he barked, but he dropped his bags and grabbed my shoulders, keeping me upright.

“I’m s-so sorry,” I said. “I was just stopping by to show this catalog to Todd and I didn’t see you there. Mr. Mobley, right? I’m Harlow Cassidy.” I pointed to my house. “I live next door.”

His scowl faded, but he remained silent.

“Todd’s been working in the yard, getting it ready for the progressive dinner tomorrow night, and I thought he might like to see this,” I continued, holding up the catalog. “There are some good ideas in here.”

He glanced back at the yard. “Should have tried harder when Delta was here. He blows with the wind, passionate about one thing today, and something else tomorrow. But, yeah, he’s doing a good job now.”

Maybe everyone should have tried a little harder when Delta was here
, I thought, but I kept it to myself.

“I’m awfully sorry for your loss, Mr. Mobley.”

He made a gruff sound and swallowed, his Adam’s apple sliding up and down in his throat. Anson wasn’t Hollywood gorgeous, but he was attractive. He was on the short side,
probably about five foot eight. With the low heels of my boots, we were at eye level with each other. He had a wide mouth, which threw off the equilibrium of his face, and with his persistent frown, he looked ready to bite off someone’s head. The breeze rustled his dark hair, a healthy spattering of gray at the temples making him look older than he might have otherwise. He had to be in his mid-fifties, but the weariness around his eyes added ten years.

I nodded to the suitcase and duffle bag. “Are you going out of town?”

His whole face tensed. “No. I just need space. Time alone. My wife, she wasn’t always easy to live with, but God almighty, I . . . I . . . I loved her.”

Emotion laced his words, and I felt his anger, loss, and frustration as if they were heavy clouds pressing down on us. I wasn’t sure what to make of his emotions. My guess was that Delta and Anson, like most couples, had a complicated relationship. At one time she thought he was cheating on her, after all. I imagined saying Delta wasn’t easy to live with was akin to saying Texas has a couple of snakes. The truth is, I suspected that, at times, Delta had been at least a Category Four hurricane, and Texas has sixty-eight species of snakes, fifteen of them venomous.

I didn’t know how to respond, so I didn’t. True to human nature, he filled in the empty space. “Do you know that my wife hired a private investigator to follow me? She thought she’d uncovered some deep, dark secret. An affair.” He raked one hand through his hair, making it stand on end. “Horseshit.”

Denial, straight from his mouth. “So you didn’t have an affair? You’re
not
having one?” I asked.

He leveled his fiery gaze at me. “An affair? No way, nohow.”

A second passed and he seemed to come back to his right mind, blinking heavily. His neck and ears turned red, and he backed away. “I need to apologize, Ms. Cassidy. I don’t know what came over me, telling you all that. Please forgive me.”

He loaded up his bags and sped off, leaving me staring after him.

I’d forgive him, all right. In fact, I thought I could discount him as a suspect in Delta’s murder, which filled me with relief. But eliminating Anson didn’t point me in the direction of anyone else. Delta’s killer was out there, and as of now, I was still completely in the dark.

I’d spent the night contemplating every possible motive for Delta’s murder. Anson wasn’t having an affair, which meant none of the Red Hat ladies were mistresses. That eliminated their possible motives. Jeremy Lisle still seemed like the strongest suspect. There had been no love lost between him and Delta, and whether it was true or not, he thought she’d been trying to undermine his run for mayor.

I hadn’t rustled up any viable motives for Pastor Kyle or Mayor Radcliffe, but that didn’t mean they didn’t exist. A new idea niggled in the back of my mind. Could it have been Sherri who killed Delta? I ticked off the possible reasons on my fingers.

1) Coco and Delta had been thick as thieves as kids, leaving Sherri on the outs. She could have harbored a lot of old bitterness that had finally erupted;

2) Whatever discovery Sherri had made, causing her to leave that message in the teapot, could have caused a huge rift. Again, Sherri may have sought revenge or restitution;

3) Sherri’s grief, given her distant relationship with her sister, seemed almost over the top. Guilty conscience?

I hadn’t been able to discern any other motives for the Red Hat ladies. They all seemed fond of Delta, and their friendships spanned decades. The rest of Delta’s family was hell-bent on finding out the truth, led by Coco, so I saw no motive there.

I sighed, defeated. I’d finished the last two aprons, the progressive dinner was set to begin, and I was no closer to the truth.

“Don’t take it personally, Cassidy,” Will said. Coco had told me I could bring a guest, and I’d roped Will into it. He’d given in pretty willingly, though.
Free food and an evening with you? Wouldn’t miss it
, he had said.

He looked dapper in his dark jeans, cowboy boots, and white button-down shirt. He’d left his cowboy hat at home so that his dark hair and swarthy skin shimmering in the moonlight. “The sheriff’ll find whoever killed Delta. You did everything you could. It’s better this way, anyway. You can get back to your dressmaking.”

I
had
done everything I could, but I still felt as if I’d failed. There had been so few clues to follow that I felt as if I’d flitted around without purpose or direction. I’d let Coco down. Sometimes, I realized, my best just wasn’t good enough.

The first stop on the progressive dinner route was Georgia Emmons’s house. “The way it works,” Coco had told me the day before, “is that whoever’s hosting a stop sets up their house for the course they’re serving. You have to be
organized so you can leave your house and go along to the other stops on the dinner.”

“And if you’re not organized?”

“That would defeat the whole purpose of the night. We’re not showboating. Most of us, anyway,” she said with a slight roll of her eyes. “It’s just about spending time together with our friends and family.”

“Oh, so other people outside the group are invited?” This was my first progressive dinner, and it was a brand-new experience.

“A few. Cynthia always likes to shake things up, no matter what the occasion.”

“So who else is coming besides the Red Hat ladies?”

“Jeremy Lisle and the pastor.”

Interesting. For a brief while, I’d forgotten that the pastor had been the one to tell Jeremy that Delta suspected Anson of having an affair. Had he known that Delta and Jeremy weren’t on friendly terms? If he’d killed Delta over their differences, he may have hoped to pin it all on Anson.

“Cynthia likes to stir the pot,” Coco said, interrupting my thoughts.

“There are always people who do.” It made sense to me. Why else would Cynthia have invited someone Delta didn’t get along with to a Red Hat event?

Just before Will had arrived to pick me up, I’d grabbed the three small brown gift bags, each tied with a strand of burgundy checkered ribbon, that contained Jessie Pearl’s, Megan’s, and Cynthia’s aprons. Coco had delivered the rest of them. These were the last of them. For the dinner, I’d brushed my hair back, trying a new, straight style. I’d switched to my iridescent blue-framed glasses to better complement the pale
periwinkle wrap dress I’d chosen for the evening. I’d made it more than a year ago, but it was a timeless piece that I could dress up or down, wear with sandals, heels, or boots, add a gold necklace or a leather strap, put my hair up or down. The possibilities were endless.

The poet sleeves were flirty and made me feel like I should be running through a field of wildflowers, and the long skirt, ending mid-calf, was feminine. I adored it, but kept it for special events. Will had never seen me in it, and my heart beat a little faster than normal in anticipation of his reaction.

I’d considered going for comfort by wearing my burnt-red harness boots, but instead, I went with the already feminine vibe I was feeling and put on strappy heels. They’d bring me closer to Will’s height, and while I was still hoping I might be able to solve a murder tonight, I also planned to take full advantage of my night out with the man I loved. Come hell or high water, I’d make sure we got some time alone.

I hurried next door, turning onto the brick walkway leading up to the front door. Todd had lined the path with paper lanterns, and it looked just as magical as he’d described it. He hadn’t lit them yet, but I could imagine candles flickering as the sun set in the west. Twinkle lights sparkled in the branches of the trees. They’d hung a dried hydrangea wreath on the front door. It looked warm and welcoming and not at all like a house with the pall of death still hovering over it.

I knocked on the front door, gift bags in hand. Megan answered it, her face drawn and pale. Instead of inviting me in, she stepped onto the porch, closing the door behind her. “God, you look gorgeous,” she said, giving me a once-over. “Is that one of your designs?”

I smiled, resisting the urge to spin around like a princess.
“It is. Megan, you have to come over to Buttons and Bows sometime.”

“I can’t afford custom designs, Harlow.”

“You’d be surprised,” I said, “but I have quite a few ready-to-wear designs. I know there are some things you’d love.”

Her chin quivered. “But my mom . . .”

She trailed off, the sentence unfinished, but I could guess what she was thinking. Her mother was dead, so how could she think about fashion and pretty dresses and dinner parties?

I took her hand. “Megan, your mother would want you to be happy.”

A harsh laugh escaped her lips. “She didn’t always want me to be happy when she was alive, but she does from the afterlife?”

The moment the words left her lips, she broke down sobbing, big tears spilling over her cheeks. “I didn’t mean that!” She turned away from me, leaning her forehead against the doorframe. “Oh God, what kind of daughter am I?”

I put my hand on her shoulder, hoping my touch could offer her a small amount of comfort in her grief. “You lost your mother,” I said. “Your dad’s moved out. You’ve got all kinds of emotions to deal with. You don’t have to hold it all in, Megan.”

“I know you said he didn’t have an affair, but what if she was right?” She looked over her shoulder, as if someone might jump out at her and whisk her away from voicing her thoughts. “What if he’s not a good man?” she asked, her voice scarcely more than a whisper.

“Whatever happened between your parents has nothing to do with how much your dad loves you,” I said. “He loved your mother.”

She nodded, and I could almost see her mind at work as she tried to convince herself that her mother had been wrong about her father. She swept her fingers under her eyes, whisking away her tears. “Are those the aprons?” she asked, her gaze flashing to the bags I held.

“Yes.” I handed her one of them. “This one’s yours.”

She untied the ribbon, pulling the apron out. I took the bag from her so she could get a proper look. “Wow!” She beamed at the off-white garment, fingering the prairie ruffles and the handmade fabric flower, her whole face lighting up. “I love it, Harlow. It’s exactly what I would have picked if I’d seen it in a store.”

She tied it around her waist. It was a good contrast against the small flowers of her nondescript dress. I gave her arm a squeeze as I said, “You ready for tonight?”

“As much as I can be.”

I handed her the bag for Jessie Pearl. “So I’ll see you at Georgia’s?”

She drew in a deep breath, slowly letting it out through her nose, and nodded. “We’re leaving in a few minutes.”

I left her with a good-bye and made my way back to my property.

The air was cool, and wearing my heels and dress, a chill wound through me. I had just made it to the front arbor separating my yard from the sidewalk when Will pulled up in his shiny white truck. I waited as he rolled to a stop right in front of the house. His eyes roved over me as he got out and moseyed around the front of the truck. “Cassidy, you are a sight to behold.”

I felt the heat of a blush on my cheeks, but another chill
brushed over my skin. “What, in this old thing?” I said, a flirtatious note in my voice.

“Yep, in that old thing. Which, by the way, has got to be just about the prettiest dress I’ve ever seen you in.”

“Thank you, Mr. Flores,” I said, smiling up at him.

He wrapped his arms around me, pulling me close. “Is it one of your designs?” he asked, his lips brushing mine.

I draped my arms around his neck, sinking into him. “Mmm-hmm.”

“And you made it for yourself?” he asked, his voice rumbling against my mouth.

“Mmm-hmm.”

“So a deep wish of yours will come true?”

My lips curved into a smile against his. “All my wishes have already come true. I have you and Gracie, Buttons and Bows is doing well, and I’m back in Bliss with my family. I don’t think there’s another thing I could ask for.”

He smiled, too. “No?”

I shook my head. “No.”

“Not even some good food tonight?”

I laughed. “I don’t need my charm to ensure that’ll happen. There’ll be plenty of good food tonight—that’s a given.”

“Then what? You must have a wish.”

I thought about it. “To figure out who killed Delta, and why,” I said.

He nodded, one side of his mouth lifting in a mischievous grin. Which was his usual state. He always looked like he was up to something. “Then let’s get going,” he said, “because tonight’s the night. Your wish is going to come true.”