Pleating for Mercy

“She’s the one who discovered the body. He’s got to ask the questions,” Mama said.

I stared at her. “How do you do that?”

“Do what?”

“How do you always know what I’m thinking? You’re not a mind reader.”

“Harlow Jane,” she said, “I’m a mother, and that, sweetheart, comes with a whole ’nother set of abilities.”

I sat back and rocked. All I could think about was the fact that Josie was in a mighty precarious position being questioned by Dirty Harry. “Josie couldn’t have done it,” I said.

“You don’t know that. She discovered the body.”

I amended my statement. “I don’t believe she could have.”

But we both knew that since no one had been with Josie when she discovered Nell’s body, she had no alibi.

Chapter 9

The next morning I sat at the kitchen table, my arms folded and serving as a pillow for my head. Now sleep wanted to come? It figured.

The sheriff and his crew had stayed until nearly one in the morning. They’d searched the yard and then I’d let them into the shop. Big mistake. They’d riffled through every last drawer and cupboard, leaving things in worse disarray than they’d already been in.

I was up until three a.m. cleaning up the shop and trying to push away the thoughts running rampant through my mind. To say I was spooked was an understatement. A woman had been killed on my property, after being in Buttons & Bows, and the sheriff and his deputies had searched high and low for clues. What if Nell had been killed before seven forty-five when Mama got here? I would have no alibi. Would I become a suspect?

I’d tossed and turned the rest of the night. But the roosters at Mr. Higgins’s place directly next door didn’t care that I needed to sleep in. That was a peculiarity about Bliss. Zoning restrictions were basically nonexistent. We had tiny farms in the middle of town. You needed an acre for a horse, but a chicken coop was fair game on our quarter-acre lots. By six o’clock, I gave up trying to sleep through the cacophony and crawled out of bed. Not even coffee could perk me up.

A fervent knock on the door of Buttons & Bows made me jump. I rubbed my eyes and looked at the redfaced vintage wall clock hanging exactly where it had been, on the brick column next to the kitchen sink, for the last thirty years. For a moment I wondered if, just maybe, it had finally stopped working because according to the hands, it was six fifty in the morning, and that was way too early for someone to be needing designer clothes. But it sounded like I wasn’t the only one who hadn’t been able to sleep.

The pounding on the door repeated itself, followed by a voice. “Harlow! It’s Josie.”

I jumped up. If there was anyone I desperately wanted to see right now, it was Josie Sandoval. Mrs. Kincaid had whisked her away after the sheriff had interrogated her, so we hadn’t had a chance to talk again. “Coming!” I called.

I’d brushed my teeth and pulled on a pair of cut-off jeans and a sleeveless plaid blouse before coming into the kitchen, none of which painted a picture of a fashion designer. Now I darted a glance around the farmhouse kitchen looking for a way to see my reflection. It might be early and the visit unexpected, but I still figured I should look presentable since Josie was a client.

I spun around. No mirrors. Meemaw had been a purist. A kitchen was for cooking and gathering, not primping. The white plantation shutters at the window above the farm sink suddenly rattled. A wave of panic flowed through me. The murder in my front yard had put me on edge. I’d checked all the window latches before going to bed, hadn’t I? Or maybe I’d just imagined I had.

I pushed the slats open wide enough to reach my hand through to shut the window—“Odd.” I bit my lip. It was closed and locked tight. So what had disturbed the shutters?

Josie pounded on the door again. As I turned away, I caught a distorted glimpse of my reflection in the window. Oh! I was not a pretty sight at the moment. Two hours of fitful sleep had that effect on a person. I combed my fingers through the tangles in my hair trying to get it to lie a little flatter. Finally I just gave up. What I looked like at the moment had no bearing on my design and sewing abilities. Josie wouldn’t even notice anyway.

I yanked open the front door and caught Josie with her fist raised, ready to pound on the door again. “I didn’t expect you,” I said.

She dropped her arm to her side. “I know. I’m sorry.”

I brushed her apology away, closing the door after she stepped inside. “Did you get any sleep?” I asked, though from her disheveled hair and red-rimmed, bloodshot eyes, I already knew the answer was no.

She shook her head and collapsed on the sofa, in the exact spot where she’d sat the day before. She buried her face in her hands and her shoulders heaved. I reached for a box of tissues, thinking she was going to break into sobs, but her body stilled and she suddenly sat up straight and looked me in the eye. “How could this have happened?”

My hackles went up. It almost felt like an accusation, and I’d had enough of that from the sheriff and the deputy. I didn’t even know Nell, for pity’s sake. “I, um . . . Josie . . . don’t know. I hope you don’t think—”

She looked at me, horrified. “Oh, God, no!” She wedged herself into the corner of the sofa, pulling her knees up. “It’s just . . . I mean . . . I can’t believe she’s dead.”

That made two of us. The deputy’s questions the night before had focused on why Nell would have been killed on my property. I had no answers to any of her questions. “I only met her today,” I’d told the officer, to which she’d replied, “Interesting.”

“You know, just when things were going really well for her. It’s not fair,” Josie said.

“I don’t think murder is ever fair.”

Josie ran her index fingers under her eyes, wiping away the tears pooling there. “But she had a tough childhood, you know? She was a foster kid. God, the things she told me.” She sniffed, dabbing her red-tipped nose with a tissue. “I had it pretty rough as a kid. No dad. My mom worked two jobs. That’s why I glommed on to you, you know? I felt like we were the same. Neither one of us had a dad around, but you had your mom, your grandmother, and, of course, Loretta Mae. I used to wish I was part of your family. There was something so special about all of you.”

Guilt wound through me. I hadn’t known then what Josie had needed from me. I’d just seen her as a shadow, a constant presence, and had never paid her any mind. “I’m sorry I wasn’t—”

She flung up her hand. “Don’t. There’s nothing to be sorry for, Harlow. You were there for me, even if you didn’t know it. I remember thinking to myself: She made it without her father. So can I. And now look.” She spread her arms wide. “I’m marrying into a good family and I’m in love. I’ve been lucky.” Her smile faded. “Nell wasn’t.”

“What do you mean?”

“Is it wrong to talk about her now?” The look she gave me sent me reeling back to when we were kids. Her big brown eyes would gaze up at me like I was her big sister. She’d thought I had all the answers back then, which I didn’t. And I sure didn’t have them now. I made it up as I went along, pulling pieces of wisdom from Mama, Nana, and Meemaw—my holy trinity. “Of course not. She died, but we aren’t going to forget her.”

She dropped her chin, shaking her head as if she was disappointed with herself. “I just . . . I wish I could have stopped her from making mistakes.”

I got up and moved in front of her, sitting on the edge of the coffee table. “It’s not your fault.”

“I was running late last night, counting the RSVPs for the wedding. If I’d been on time . . .”

“We don’t know why she was killed. If you’d been on time, you might have been a victim, too.”

“She was hooking up with guys she met on the Internet. Exaggerdating, she called it. Not a single one of the guys she went out with was honest in his profile.”

“Why’d she keep doing it?”

Josie stared into space for a minute. “She never thought she was good enough, like being on her own for so