Pleating for Mercy

I forced my gaze back to the bride and groom. The priest was midway through his greeting, telling the story of how Josie and Nate had met, and I couldn’t keep it in a second longer. I leaned close to Mama and whispered, “What’s Sheriff McClaine’s cell number?”

Her eyes were tearing, but she managed to gape at me. “You’re going to call the sheriff now?” she whispered back.

I lifted my cell from my lap. “No, I’m going to text him.” My index finger was poised over the touch pad. “Mama?”

“What makes you think I have it?”

I had an answer ready. “It’s a small town. Don’t you have everyone’s number?”

She looked at me a beat too long, like she was trying to decide if I knew something I shouldn’t, but then she caved. “Tissue, please,” she said as she took out her phone and scrolled through her contacts.

I riffled through my clutch. No tissue. Just the napkins wadded around the velvet jewelry bag. Thinking about the ring got me thinking about Nell. From what I knew of her, she seized opportunities. Miriam had gone to her with a problem, and Nell had added two and two together and seen diamond-studded dollar signs in her head.

Mama held her hand out, waiting for the tissue. I pulled the napkin off the bag and started to hand it to her. The logo on the napkin stopped me cold. Gold lettering on a textured red background.

REATA RESTAURANT.

LEGENDARY. TEXAS. CUISINE.

My conversation with Zinnia James came back to me. She said she’d seen Nell at the restaurant. Nell had a stack of napkins from Reata in her bathroom. I could hear Nell’s voice as she said she’d never been there. I stared at the napkin. Then where had this come from?

The adrenaline rushing through me turned to ice. Nell had lied, but why?

I handed the napkin to Mama, who promptly dabbed her eyes, then showed me the sheriff’s number.

My text to the sheriff went out the next second: Whistle-blower, and I held my breath to see if he even had his phone with him.

He shifted in his pew, reached in his jacket pocket, and a few second later, my phone vibrated. Who is this?

Harlow! I texted.

And? he messaged back.

I could sense his annoyance through the satellite waves. And, I wrote, grateful he couldn’t hear my irritation as my fingers flew across the touch pad. Derek K—illegal diamonds.

SEND.

My phone buzzed and I read his message. More. He was a man of few words.

I didn’t want to send him a thesis, but I didn’t want to be so obtuse he wouldn’t understand my point. Miriam didn’t know Nate was blowing the whistle on Derek. She went to Nell about her smuggling theory, but what if Nell was—

My phone vibrated.

“Shhh,” Mama hushed me, her finger to her lips.

I responded by angling toward Will, showing him the texts as I read the sheriff’s message. Miriam K knew . . . told Nell. Then I added one word: Blackmail.

McClaine turned to look at me over his shoulder, giving me a quick nod; then he dropped his phone back in his pocket. Over and out.

If Nell suspected that Derek was dealing in illegal diamonds, would she have tried to blackmail him? If she did, and Derek paid, she would have been able to pay back the money she’d borrowed from Karen and Ted to buy the bead shop.

But what if it was more than that? What if Derek had gotten Nell pregnant? It still didn’t explain why she’d lied about never having been to Reata, but she had been horribly wrong if she’d gotten it in her head that she and Derek plus baby made a family. From what Will and Mrs. James had both said, the Kincaids wouldn’t have welcomed a pregnant Nell into their home, Derek’s child or not.

I tried to focus on the wedding ceremony, but Nell’s death skulked in and out of my thoughts. I couldn’t stop thinking that Nell had risked it all—and lost.

An hour later, the ceremony was over, we’d made our way to the banquet room catty-corner from Bliss’s Opera House on one corner of the square, and I was still unraveling the threads of my tangled thoughts.

The room was an organized sea of round tables covered in white linen tablecloths. Triangular folded napkins, silverware, water goblets, and wineglasses sat at each place setting. Instead of vases filled with cut flowers, fresh Easter lilies in pale green ceramic pots, softened with shimmery white organza ribbon, dressed each table.

The room was festive with white, pale olive green, and lavender helium balloons strategically placed at the entrance, next to the deejay’s speakers, and at either side of the buffet tables. Twinkling white lights edged the exposed beams of the ceiling and dotted the cascading rose trees on the cake table, the buffet table, and around the room.

It was magical—if only it hadn’t been tainted by murder. Josie was effervescent, floating from table to table, Nate by her side. Karen snuggled close to her husband. She’d told me that Nell’s will had been read and she was now partners with Josie. I hadn’t thought she wanted to own the bead shop, but I’d never seen her look happier. Her husband’s adoring gaze probably helped.

Gracie glided up to us wearing a sleeveless dress, a fabric purse slung over one shoulder and cutting a diagonal across her body. “Wasn’t that beautiful?” she gushed.

She reminded me of Liesl in The Sound of Music, ready to break into song and dance. Looking at her, I suddenly realized why. “Did you make your dress?”

She beamed, nodding.

It was a straightforward pattern without any design lines, but she’d constructed it well. She’d used an inexpensive polyester blend. A cotton blend would have worked better for the simple shift, but for her first attempt at an entire dress, and from what Will had said, made in the wee hours of the night, she’d done an amazing job. I hugged her. “It’s fantastic, Gracie.”

Her flush deepened. “Thank you,” she whispered, fingering the long, braided strap of her purse.

“You make the purse, too?”

She nodded, pulling the rectangular bag from her hip to show me. “Isn’t it awesome? It’s like a hippie purse from the seventies.”

“Minus the fringe,” Will said.

Reaching out, I brushed my fingers over the thick weave of the torn fabric braid with its frayed and feathery edges. The pattern was distinct. One of the three strands was significantly wider than the others so the design was lopsided. “Did you weave this yourself?”

She shook her head no. “There was a whole bunch of it in one of the boxes I got from Holly’s mom. It’s, like, flawed, right? Kind of uneven, but that’s why I like it. Cool, huh?”

My breath hitched, half of her words fading to black. “The fabric bins? Miriam gave you those, too?”

Will spoke up. “She said she hasn’t used any of it in years. Probably been sitting in a closet in her house. When she dropped them off, I thought she wanted me to take them to the rummage sale, but then she said she wanted Gracie to have fun and just experiment.”

Gracie grinned. “So I made a purse.”

A thread unwound from the mess of details in my mind, and an idea began to form. I searched the room until I spotted Madelyn Brighton, and waved my arms over my head to flag her down.

Will and his daughter stared at me. “Darlin’, what in the world—”

My wide-eyed look froze the words on his tongue. “Those bins weren’t at Miriam’s house. They were at her parents’ house. Where Derek stays when he’s in town,” I added slowly. “And he’s been in town for almost five weeks.”

“Crap,” he muttered, whispering, “You really think so?”

“Think what?” Gracie asked, flicking her gaze back and forth between me and her dad.